


Starstruck

by Atalan



Series: Laws of Gravity [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (but he's not happy about it), Alternate Universe, Angst, Aziraphale has a crush the size of Alpha Centauri, Crowley Doesn't Fall, Crowley is Raphael, Eve's rock collection, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Senpai Notice Me, Series, The Garden of Eden, Wing Grooming, slowburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22229962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atalan/pseuds/Atalan
Summary: Aziraphale wasn't one of the angels tasked with creation. He wasn't ever expected to create anything new, but as it happened, he already had, though no-one (including him) realised it.He had, completely on his own and with very little fuss, invented being desperately, hopelessly in love with someone who didn't even know his name.AU. Aziraphale gets a shock when he runs into the Archangel Raphael in the Garden, especially since he's calling himself "Crowley" and pretending to be just any old ordinary angel. Meanwhile Crowley just wants someone to appreciate him for himself without all the convoluted power games of Heaven...
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Laws of Gravity [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729168
Comments: 251
Kudos: 1133





	1. Chapter 1

It was getting dark in the Garden, and Aziraphale was on his way to light the humans' campfire for them. He was guiltily aware that it wasn't the intended use of his flaming sword, but Eve had been fascinated by the flames since Aziraphale first spoke to her. She'd also recently figured out that the potato - a tuber no-one, including possibly its creator, had understood the appeal of - became a lot more appetising if it was left under hot coals for a while before consumption. Aziraphale was both delighted by her ingenuity and a big fan of the resulting fluffy innards, so a campfire had become a nightly ritual.

Except that as he approached, he saw a flicker of flame through the trees ahead. Aziraphale slowed to a halt, startled and concerned. Had they worked out how to start a fire for themselves? Was that a bad thing? Would he be in trouble if anyone found out?

Then it occurred to him that there was another option, one that sent a shiver down his spine. He was, after all, guarding the Eastern Gate for a _reason_. The Adversary was bound to show up at some point, or send one of his agents to meddle with the humans. Aziraphale couldn't sense any particular evil intent, but then, he hardly knew what he was looking for. He swallowed hard, gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, and hurried forward through the trees.

Adam and Eve were sitting in their usual places by the fire, and a stranger was sitting with them, a stranger wearing the same sort of fine white linen robe that Aziraphale had been assigned for his time on Earth. He was laughing as Aziraphale approached, his hair gleaming red in the firelight; his elegant wings were black, a colour Aziraphale had never seen an angel wear, and his eyes—

Aziraphale almost tripped and fell flat on his face. Not a stranger after all, no, he'd know those eyes _anywhere_ , even in this unassuming corporation with its long auburn hair and lanky limbs and sideways smile and too-sharp face.

The face _was_ the same, really, it was just that it had been toned down, made as human as possible, stripped of its glory and its grace - except for the eyes, which were as bright and as fierce and as beautiful as they'd been every time Aziraphale had dared to steal a glance at them.

They had also widened at his approach, and there was something like dismay in them, and something like a plea.

"Oh, hi there," said the not-stranger, jumping to his feet and rubbing his hands nervously down the sides of his robe. "So _you're_ the angel of the Eastern Gate I've been hearing so much about. Nice to meet you, I'm Crowley."

Aziraphale stared at him, unable to form words even if he wanted to. There was a kind of desperation in the greeting, an urgency behind the too-casual smile.

Aziraphale opened his mouth, found no words there, hesitated. The golden eyes were fixed on him, and yes, they were definitely _pleading_ , definitely asking him to go along with it. Being the focus of attention like that turned Aziraphale's world upside-down and rendered him quite helpless to do anything other than oblige.

"Er," Aziraphale said, and then, "Oh. I. Um. Nice to meet you... Crowley?"

Crowley's shoulders relaxed and gratitude flooded his face for an instant before he gestured invitingly towards the fire.

"Are you joining us? I've just been learning about what happens when you boil water and then put a certain kind of leaf in it."

"Adam worked that out," Eve put in proudly. She didn't seem to have noticed anything odd about their exchange. "We're calling it _tea_."

"Oh no, no, I couldn't possibly," Aziraphale said quickly, blushing and taking a step backwards, looking anywhere but at Crowley. "I'm— guard duty, you know, better get back to it, ever-vigilant and all that..."

He _prayed_ \- or, well, not exactly _prayed_ because he didn't really think God would approve, but certainly _hoped_ fervently - that Eve wouldn't mention how many evenings he'd spent with them already. Not in front of—

"Relax, I'd know if there was a demon anywhere near the Garden," Crowley insisted with an enviable self-assurance. "Stay and try the stewed leaves." 

Aziraphale didn't know if that was an order or a request, didn't know what on _Earth_ was going on here, but he dared not disobey, regardless. He edged tentatively to take a seat on one of the rocks Adam had placed around the fire, sitting very straight and stiff, hands tightly clasped in his lap. Crowley hesitated for a moment before taking his own seat; out of the corner of his eye, Aziraphale thought he caught an almost guilty look on his face before it was smoothed away.

"So," Crowley said, grinning at Eve. "Tea?"

Aziraphale said very little for the rest of the evening, responding only when spoken to and wincing every time Adam or Eve casually mentioned some little interaction he'd had with them. It was all too obvious now that he shouldn't have indulged himself in so many distractions. Eve even started to talk about how much he loved the Garden's fruit, but fortunately for Aziraphale's steadily reddening cheeks, Crowley accidentally kicked the fire just then, and they were all distracted by the sparks and the smoke that set them coughing.

Crowley was full of questions, eager and curious, watching the humans with fascination in his expressive face, attentive and interested in everything they had to say. With his black wings half-hidden in the darkness behind him, he almost looked human himself, apart from his eyes. His eyes, which Aziraphale would have known anywhere. His eyes, which had so captivated Aziraphale since before the world was made—

Aziraphale bit his lip and focused fiercely on the crude cup in his hands. The tea was warm and had a certain pleasant fragrance, though it was rather bitter on his tongue. It needed work, but he was still so impressed by the humans' ingenuity in even trying it in the first place. He was sure they'd improve it in no time.

He realised Crowley was looking at him while Adam talked about doing something clever with woven grass, looking at him with a singularity of focus that Aziraphale had _dreamed_ of in the past, but that now left him hopelessly confused and desperately nervous. He didn't understand why Crowley was _here_ , why he'd made Aziraphale stay, why he kept looking over like he was trying to read Aziraphale's face.

It had to be a test, Aziraphale thought miserably, and it was surely one he'd already failed. Too much time fraternising with the humans, too much indulgence in un-angelic behaviour. The world had hardly begun, the Garden had hardly had a chance to bloom, and Aziraphale had already made a mess of his very first job. He'd no doubt be sent back to Heaven at once, probably put on paperwork duty while all the interesting things happened down here.

He couldn't think of any _other_ reason an Archangel would come to check on him in person. He just didn't understand why Crowley had been so desperate to stop Aziraphale from greeting him as _Raphael_.

* * *

Aziraphale wasn't one of the angels tasked with creation. He wasn't designed for it, wasn't supposed to have much of an imagination (though in fact, he had some thoughts about sprucing up the celestial harmonies, which were beginning to sound a bit repetitive, at least in his opinion). He wasn't ever expected to create anything new, but as it happened, he already had, though no-one (including him) realised it.

He had, completely on his own and with very little fuss, invented being desperately, hopelessly in love with someone who didn't even know his name.

The concept of love had of course been there from the Beginning, but falling _in_ love, well, that hadn't been addressed at all in any of the orientation seminars, so Aziraphale didn't know how to classify the feeling that had wholly claimed his heart. He didn't even know exactly when it had started, though he thought it must have been the first time he saw all five Archangels together for one of the mandatory Heavenly progress reports.

Gabriel and Lucifer were familiar to him, what with how involved they both were in the minutiae of Creation. He'd seen Michael and Uriel about. He'd never seen Raphael, which some people said was because that particular Archangel was aloof and disdained company, and which others said was just because he was very busy with making all the stars right now.

Aziraphale preferred to believe the latter, because in general, he preferred to believe the best of people, and so far, nothing had really happened to disillusion him.

Of the five, Lucifer was unquestionably the most beautiful, the most arresting, but there was something about him that alarmed Aziraphale, a hot-cold edge that made him want to look away. Gabriel was charming and confident; Michael was steel-spined and unapproachable. Uriel was as still as deep water until she flashed like lightning, sharp and hot and sudden.

Raphael was spun of red and gold and smiles and stars, and Aziraphale watched him that first time with a simple curiosity that slowly became something more attentive. He was so unlike the other Archangels, so unlike any other angel Aziraphale had met so far, and when he laughed, it made Aziraphale want to smile along with him. He was _warm_ , and perhaps that was the first time Aziraphale grasped that warmth was something Heaven, for all its beauty and grace, rather lacked.

His hair was long and rippling and seemed to contain every shade of red ever invented. His face was bright and animated, his mouth expressive, his hands always in motion. He hurried to catch up with his siblings, not because his legs were shorter (in fact, he was tall and fluid, loped easily across their stride) but because he was constantly distracted by the things around him, his gaze drawn to whatever his path crossed. His wings were not white; they were tinged with a rose-gold that shaded into copper at the tips.

And his eyes... his eyes were the gold of a newly forged star, the close-up molten glimmer of it, all the colour and heat that would be lost from a distance. His pupils were odd, narrow and straight, vertical black bars across the honey-golden glow (like the signature of sodium in the spectrum of the Sun, Aziraphale would later learn). Their slender outline did nothing to reduce the multitudes of emotion that those eyes could express.

Aziraphale decided, immediately and without hesitation, that anyone who had ever called Raphael _aloof_ had either never met him or was an appalling judge of character. He thought he'd like to speak to him. He doubted he'd get the chance. Every angel in Heaven was swarming into the meeting, and the favour of the Archangels was highly sought-after.

Aziraphale found himself near the back, and he tried to pay attention to whatever Gabriel was saying about the latest items on the agenda, but his eyes kept going back to the youngest Archangel, to that warmth and that restless energy and that brilliance. Raphael didn't seem especially absorbed by Gabriel's speech; he slowly faded back away from his siblings, as if he wanted to disappear into the shadows (as if he ever could). He started to toy with something in his cupped hands, bright points of light (could he work with starstuff even here?) until Michael snapped her head around and glared, and he guiltily closed his fingers over those tiny fragments of radiance.

It made something in Aziraphale ache, to see him snuff that light into darkness, to see his face go still and his eyes drop to the floor. It made something in Aziraphale _sing_ when, as soon as Michael's attention was elsewhere, Raphael carefully opened one hand and let a single, defiant white glow hover over his palm. He smiled, and flicked his fingers, and the light went away, but Aziraphale was absolutely sure that it simply went _elsewhere_ rather than being extinguished.

For once, the meeting ended too soon. He lost sight of Raphael in the churn of everyone filing out together. It was only as he drifted back to his place in the archives that Aziraphale realised he had no idea at _all_ what had been discussed.

* * *

When Adam started dozing off on Eve's shoulder, Aziraphale saw his chance.

"You two really must get to sleep," he said, jumping to his feet. "And I really must get back to the wall." He couldn't bring himself to do more than glance at Crowley. "Er, yes, well, it was nice to meet you, I'll just—"

"I'll come with you," Crowley replied, standing up almost as fast as Aziraphale had. Aziraphale's heart sank. "If that's all right?"

It wasn't like Aziraphale could say no, was it? He nodded reluctantly, smiled wanly at Eve as she prodded Adam awake enough to move to their sleeping spot, and waited for Crowley to reach his side before heading for the trees.

There was an awkward silence until they were out of earshot of the campfire. Aziraphale was bracing himself for a thorough telling off. At least Crowley was - well - Raphael had always _seemed_ kinder than the other Archangels...

When they were deep in the trees, Crowley finally spoke. Or, more accurately, burst into speech like it had been bottled up inside him and the pressure had finally forced the lid off.

"Sorry about that. Really. Thanks for covering for me— didn't mean to spoil your evening, honestly, I didn't realise there was anyone down here who'd recognise me— listen, if you don't mind, can you keep on calling me Crowley around the humans? I'd rather they didn't— yeah I know it's kind of strange, but uh—"

Aziraphale, utterly bewildered and completely focused on trying to understand what he was hearing, walked into a tree.

"Oh," he said faintly as he staggered back from the impact. "Um."

Crowley caught hold of his elbow before he could fall, and steered him gently into a nearby clearing where the starlight was just enough to see by.

"Are you okay?"

"You're not going to punish me?" Aziraphale blurted out. He blamed the collision for shaking his brain around. "For talking to the humans?"

"For talking—" Crowley's hand was still on his arm, and Aziraphale couldn't help looking up at him, looking at his face for the first time since he'd recognised him by the fire. His golden eyes were wide with surprise, shading into dismay. "Of _course_ not. Why would you think that?"

Aziraphale looked away in a hurry, feeling his cheeks heat up to match the throbbing pain in his nose and forehead.

"I, er, well, I wasn't sure—"

He winced as a particularly strong wave of pain bloomed across the bridge of his nose.

"Hold on." Crowley brought a hand up to Aziraphale's face, and it was all Aziraphale could do not to jerk back from sheer overwhelmed mortification. "No, hold still, I'll just—"

His fingertip brushed across the bruise that was forming. Aziraphale's pain melted away like it had never been. The blush, on the other hand, intensified to the point where he felt like he might actually be glowing with it.

"Th-thank you—"

Crowley stepped back, crossed his arms over his chest, and smiled hesitantly at Aziraphale.

"I think," he said, "we should start over."

Aziraphale nodded in a bewildered sort of way.

"I came down to see what the humans are getting up to," Crowley went on. "Only, Gabriel's been filling their heads with a lot of nonsense about properly revering the Archangels—"

There was such distaste in his voice that it made Aziraphale's eyebrows shoot up.

"— and I'm not _technically_ supposed to be here," Crowley went on, with studied offhandedness. "I mean, not that they can stop me, really, it's just, look I'm sure you know what Gabriel can be like—"

Aziraphale wasn't sure what his face was doing, but Crowley smirked at him like he'd answered out loud.

"Yeah, like _that_. Anyway, seemed like the best idea was to just... come up with a new name, you know? That way the humans treat me like any old angel and Gabriel's none the wiser."

"What about your wings?" Aziraphale asked before he could stop himself.

Crowley flexed them self-consciously, casting a glance over his own shoulder.

"Oh, I just thought... best to make myself look as different as possible. You don't like them?"

"They're beautiful," Aziraphale blurted out, taken off-guard by how uncertain Crowley had looked for a moment. "Um. Very. Very _stylish_."

He was probably imagining the faint flush that crept onto Crowley's sharp cheekbones, but he definitely wasn't imagining the pleased smile or the slight flutter of those midnight feathers in response.

"Thank you," Crowley said. He hesitated, then went on in a rush, "Look, I really am sorry, I never meant to make you so uncomfortable back there—"

"No, it's— it's quite all right, I was just— surprised, that's all, I didn't know—"

Aziraphale trailed off, and Crowley studied his face.

"If it was some sort of secret test?" he asked quietly.

Aziraphale nodded. Crowley's mouth pulled sideways, his eyes dim and distant for a moment.

"Listen," he said, "I'm telling you, right now, I don't _do_ that. Not ever. If I want to test something, you'll know about it." He shook himself, his face relaxing into another surprisingly tentative smile. "I promise, uh— Aziraphale, isn't it?"

Aziraphale's heart leapt so violently in his chest that he thought there must be something very wrong with his corporation.

"You— you know me?" he stammered, pressing his hand against his sternum to try and control the pounding behind it.

"We've run into each other a couple of times, haven't we? You know—" Crowley's eyes went heavenward for a moment, "—up there. Just don't think I'd heard your name before Eve mentioned it."

"O-oh." Aziraphale's heart was definitely doing something non-regulation now, not just galloping like an out-of-control zebra, but sort of swooping about in a very anatomically improbable manner. It was a bit like being very afraid, but also, confusingly, like being extraordinarily happy. "I— yes. Yes, I think we've talked. Once or twice."

(Three times, each one burned into his memory like the afterimages from staring at the sun.)

"Well," Crowley said, "I suppose we'll be talking more now, won't we? I mean. If you want to. It's just that I want to spend some more time with the humans—"

If it weren't completely preposterous, Aziraphale would almost think he was asking _permission,_ checking that his presence wouldn't be unwelcome.

"Of course," Aziraphale said faintly. "Whatever you want."

It seemed like somehow it wasn't the right answer, from the way Crowley's face fell minutely, only to draw itself into a neutral, closed expression.

"Right," he said. "Great. I'll, uh, see you tomorrow then."

He spread his ebony wings and rocketed into the sky before Aziraphale could muster a response. Aziraphale watched him ascend until he was out of sight. His hand was still pressed to his chest, he realised, though it had done nothing to tame his still-thundering heart. He massaged the heel of it absently against his ribs as he stared up at the stars.

Belatedly, he remembered that he had a job he was supposed to be doing. He had no idea which way he was even facing right now, or how far they'd walked before he'd had his arboreal encounter. It seemed easiest to take flight himself, rising above the treetops until he could see the line of the wall and the gate he was meant to guard.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time they'd ever spoken was hardly worth remembering, but Aziraphale remembered it anyway.

He'd been watching Raphael for some time by then, never exactly on purpose, but finding his attention drawn irresistibly whenever he caught a glimpse of long red hair and rose-gold wings, heard his voice or his laughter. 

(Other angels - if they laughed at all - laughed like a ripple of bells or a shimmer of crystal; Raphael laughed like it had been punched out of him by his own delight, a little too loud and a little too sharp and a little too reckless. Aziraphale had seen Michael and Gabriel shoot him irritated looks for it on more than one occasion.)

Aziraphale had amassed a small treasure trove of stolen glimpses, carefully sorted in his memories by whatever emotion had been on Raphael's expressive face, by whatever snatches of conversation he'd overheard. He'd built the beginnings of a portrait from them, a first hazy sketch of understanding, an outline of someone who was quick and clever, who was for the most part kind, who often spoke before he thought, who seemed to have more questions than he could find answers for. Aziraphale liked him more than he really had any right to, and more than once, he found himself feeling a stab of very unangelic envy of the Seraphim and Cherubim who so easily commanded the Archangel's attention.

But of course, when he actually had the chance to make an impression, he blew it spectacularly.

He was too absorbed in his work to even notice that someone had come into the archive. He barely registered footsteps approaching his station. When a voice said, "Uh, 'scuse me?" he was in no way prepared to look right up into those breathtaking golden eyes.

Aziraphale gasped out loud in the most undignified fashion, and to his mortification, couldn't stop his wings fluffing up and out in surprise and alarm, fluttering once before he could get them under control. Raphael blinked, and laughed. There was no mockery in it, just amusement and a slight note of embarrassment.

"Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you," Raphael said with a smile. His gaze left Aziraphale to flit over the expanse of the archive behind him. "I'm looking for the head archivist, do you know where she is?"

And there were so many ways Aziraphale could have replied, if he'd been able to get his thoughts in order. So many things he could have said to prolong the exchange a little, to prove himself particularly useful and noteworthy, to try and get another smile out of Raphael, to get those eyes back on him. Maybe he could have offered to take him to the right section, walked at his side and asked some sort of intelligent question about the making of stars. 

Instead, he just blurted out the division and section numbers where he'd last seen the head archivist, with absolutely no finesse, like an automaton programmed to respond only with the relevant data.

"Thanks," Raphael replied, barely glancing back at him as he turned and headed off into the stacks.

Aziraphale watched him go, and then waited for quite a while longer, twisting his hands together nervously, in the hope that Raphael would come back and give him a second chance after he'd so spectacularly blown the first one. Eventually, reluctantly, he went back to his work, running the encounter through his mind over and over again, cursing himself for such a failure of imagination.

* * *

Aziraphale made himself wait on the wall until the sun was almost below the horizon, until he saw the glimmer of firelight through the trees. Then he flew down into the Garden and walked at a reasonable and unhurried pace to the humans' camp. Crowley was already deep in a discussion with Adam about some sort of herb, but he looked up when Aziraphale arrived, gave him a smile of welcome. This time, Aziraphale found the courage to smile back, tentative and nervous as it was.

After that Eve commandeered his attention: she'd collected more rocks, and she wanted his help categorising them. Aziraphale knew nothing about rocks, other than that they were an important component in keeping everything nice and solid underfoot, but after working in the archives it was trivial to keep track of the details, and Eve had taken to using him as a sort of walking catalogue. Aziraphale didn't mind. He rather wished he could show her how to write, but that was one of the things they were supposed to figure out on their own, and anyway, angelic script wasn't entirely comprehensible to mortals.

It was different - very different - from the night before, and different from the other evenings Aziraphale had spent with the humans. He'd always felt as though he was supposed to be their teacher, in some awkward way, though he'd hardly been up to the task; they'd had so many questions he'd done his best to answer. Now it was Crowley who kept asking questions, Adam and Eve who gave him answers, and his very presence seemed to change the atmosphere, made Aziraphale feel... feel more like he _belonged_ here, ridiculous though it was to contemplate.

With Crowley so absorbed, it wasn't hard to fall back into the habit of watching him the way Aziraphale always had, to study the differences between the radiant Archangel and this form he'd taken on Earth. It wasn't that he looked so very different - apart from the more subtle auburn of his hair and the midnight hue of his wings - but it was like he was trying to hide his light under black feathers. It was impossible, of course; try as he might, Aziraphale could see it in his smile, his eyes, the way his hands moved when he got excited about something. You couldn't hide the sun under a stone, after all.

Unfortunately he hadn't allowed for the fact that this was no crowded heavenly hall, that he wasn't drifting anonymously in the background, that Crowley was sitting right there across the fire and could easily glance over in return.

Which he now did, with a smile that was interrupted by surprise as he realised Aziraphale was looking at him. Aziraphale felt his cheeks heat up like a furnace, tore his eyes away, and focused very hard on Eve's rock collection until he was sure he'd returned to a normal colour.

* * *

The second time Raphael came to the archive, his mood was very different, face dark with suppressed frustration, moving like a spring wound up too tight.

"The head archivist?" he demanded before Aziraphale could even open his mouth to speak.

"She, ah—" She had been very clear that she wasn't to be interrupted, and Aziraphale had a sinking feeling that she'd known that Raphael would be dropping by. What was he supposed to say? Was he meant to lie? To an Archangel? "She's— she's not available just now, I'm sorry."

Raphael scowled so fiercely that Aziraphale braced himself to be shouted at. No shouting was forthcoming. Raphael turned to stare out over the archives like he was hoping to spot the head archivist for himself. After a moment, he turned back, expression shifting into appraisal as he looked Aziraphale over.

"Maybe you can help me," he said, and Aziraphale barely managed to make an inquiring noise that didn't sound too much like a squeak. "D'you know where the files on the Earth solar system are kept?"

"Oh! Yes, I do, actually." Aziraphale knew the location of everything in the archive that he had seen with his own eyes. In that regard his memory was eidetic, even though he frequently found himself getting lost in Heaven's back halls or forgetting the names of other angels. "It's in—"

"Could you show me?"

Aziraphale felt that he handled the situation rather well given that he'd daydreamed repeatedly about being handed this exact scenario since Raphael's first visit to the archives. He barely hesitated at all and he _probably_ didn't look as flustered as he felt.

"Y-yes, of course. This way."

The archives stretched to infinity, but their space was curved in such a way that one could cross great swathes with a few steps, if one knew what one was doing. Aziraphale unerringly took the shortest path to the section in question, and gestured with the tiniest flush of pride.

"It's all here." 

He paused, expecting to be dismissed, trying desperately to come up with an excuse to stay. Raphael looked the masses of records up and down with a slightly lost expression, glanced at Aziraphale, and gave him exactly that.

"Any idea where I'd find the structural blueprints for the Sun?"

Aziraphale frowned as he considered it. He'd mostly been concerned with cataloguing the details of Earth; he hadn't been asked to work on any of the rest of the solar system. But he knew how the archive's eclectic filing system worked, and could take a good guess at where the information would be. He hummed to himself thoughtfully as he paced up and down, peering at the catalogue numbers; with a small noise of triumph, he pulled out a couple of files and offered them to Raphael.

Raphael smiled at him like Aziraphale was the cleverest person he'd ever met, and Aziraphale almost dropped the files in response. Raphael didn't seem to notice, taking them from his hands and immediately beginning to flip through the first one.

Then his face darkened again, a frown tugging at his lips, brows furrowing.

"This is definitely the current version?" he asked, glancing at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale checked the codes again, and nodded. Raphael continued to page through the file with increasing urgency.

"Then where are my blasted _changes_?

He didn't seem to expect an answer, which was just as well, because Aziraphale didn't have one. Half a dozen emotions chased each other across Raphael's face, and Aziraphale watched them helplessly, wishing he understood how to take that increasing frustration away.

"Look at this," Raphael said, gesturing at the file. It wasn't exactly a physical object, not here in the Beginning when paper hadn't technically been invented. At the movement of his hand, a semi-transparent model of the sun sprang up out of it. "You see those convection currents? You see that turbulence?"

"Yes?" Aziraphale replied, though what he mostly saw was how troubled Raphael seemed, how bright and burning and focused he was as he studied the sphere of light.

" _Solar flares_ ," Raphael snapped. He flicked the illusory sun with a fingertip, and it belched out a great gout of plasma and sent a wave of radiation flooding outwards. "Just one of those hits the Earth at the wrong time, it could ruin _everything_. And Gabriel won't let me change it! Even though I've got a much better idea for how to run the whole heating system—"

Aziraphale nodded like he knew what Raphael was talking about. Raphael glared at the file and then sighed.

"He says it doesn't matter because there's nothing in the Great Plan about cooking everything on the planet," Raphael muttered. "But why take the chance? What if the Great Plan..."

Raphael broke off, gazing at the sun in the palm of his hand with a haunted, fragile expression Aziraphale had never seen on any angel's face before. He froze, sure all at once that whatever Raphael said next would change everything he understood about the universe.

But Raphael fell silent, and shook his head, and pressed the model sun back into place with a sigh. He passed the files back to Aziraphale, but his eyes were distant, his thoughts already elsewhere.

"Thanks for your help," he said, turning to leave. "Tell the head archivist I want to talk to her, would you?"

"Of course," Aziraphale replied, clutching the files to his chest as he watched him go.

* * *

"So you just sort of hang out up here all the time, do you?" Crowley asked. He'd followed Aziraphale back to the wall at the end of the evening, and Aziraphale had made no attempt to dissuade him from doing so. "What do you do all day?"

"Oh, well, I—" Aziraphale fumbled desperately for the sort of answer he'd give Gabriel. "Well, I scan the horizon for— for any sign of the Adversary— and, er— consider the tactics I'd use defend the gate—"

Crowley fixed him with a look both knowing and sympathetic.

"That sounds incredibly boring."

"It really is," Aziraphale confessed before he could help himself. "I know it's important and of _course_ I won't let anything happen to the humans, but I really don't see why I can't do that from _inside_ the Garden—"

He stopped, mortified at the rush of honesty, but Crowley just laughed.

"I'm not gonna tell on you. Stupid idea, really, sticking an angel on each of the four walls when demons can fly just as well as we can. They could drop right down behind you without you even noticing."

A chill went down Aziraphale's spine.

"They could?"

Crowley sauntered over to the desert-facing side of the wall and sat down on the stones, legs dangling over the edge.

"Don't worry, I'm— well, honestly, that's one of the reasons I thought I should drop in now and then." He shot Aziraphale an apologetic look. "And I _don't_ mean that you're not up to the job, I _swear_ —"

"No, no, I— I quite understand." Aziraphale hesitated, and then with an uncharacteristic flash of bravery, went to sit on the edge of the wall next to Crowley. It gave him an odd sense of vertigo to be sitting with his feet dangling over such a height, even though of course he could save himself from a fall. "I didn't realise— I thought they must have lost their wings. Seems a bit strange to even have a wall at all, in that case."

"Yeah, I thought that too." Crowley leaned back on his hands and turned to look at Aziraphale intently. "D'you talk to the other guards?"

"Oh, er— now and then." He tried not to, if he was honest. He didn't like any of them very much. "Sometimes we meet at the corners."

"Any of them ever leave their posts?"

Aziraphale felt a flush of embarrassment and tried to remind himself of what Crowley had said about tests.

"I don't believe so. They're all rather— all sticklers for procedure, you know."

"Boring, you mean," Crowley muttered, the corner of his mouth twitching upward wickedly. "Boring enough not to be bored by it all."

"I didn't say anything of the sort!"

Crowley laughed, golden eyes glimmering with starlight as tilted his head back to look at the sky. Aziraphale felt the breath go out of him, felt as if the wall beneath him wasn't as solid as it should have been.

"Can I ask—" Aziraphale stopped mid-sentence, because he'd been keeping this question saved up for so long, built so many daydreams around it, that to actually voice it seemed like an invitation to disappointment. But Crowley was waiting for him to continue, one eyebrow raised in invitation, and he couldn't think of anything to say instead, so he swallowed hard, and went on, "I always wondered... if you made the stars, you know, one by one, or if— if you sort of, scattered them out there and let them get on with it? There are just so _many_ of them."

"Bit of both, depends on how important they were, really. Most of the other galaxies are background detail, and we got a bit experimental with the core of the Milky Way, sort of set things running and then waited to see what happened, but most of the Orion Arm was done by hand—"

Crowley paused and shot him a suddenly hesitant look.

"You'll tell me to shut up when you get bored, won't you?" he said. "I've already talked too many people's ears off about this stuff."

Aziraphale had a sudden vivid memory of Michael glaring at Raphael until he put his stars out, of Gabriel scowling when he laughed too hard.

"But it's so interesting!" Aziraphale blurted out. "How could anyone get bored?"

Crowley laughed in a self-mocking sort of way, shook his head, looked back up at the sky, but none of it was enough to hide the faint flush that had crept onto his cheekbones.

"You might change your mind when I really get going," he said, but it was half-hearted, his voice gone a little soft. He lifted a hand to point at the brightest star in front of them. "That's Sirius. Funny story, it was supposed to be about five parsecs closer to the galactic core and not half so bright, but the memos got a bit mixed up..."

* * *

The third and last time they'd met in Heaven was seared the deepest into Aziraphale's memory.

Raphael didn't come back to the archives again, or if he did, it wasn't while Aziraphale was there. There were rumours and whispers running the length and breadth of Heaven, an uneasy tension thrumming through the Host. Lucifer, the whispers said, always Lucifer: Lucifer questioned the creation of Earth, Lucifer challenged the details of the Great Plan, Lucifer stood on the brink of _defying_ the Almighty Herself...

And more than once, when Aziraphale caught sight of Raphael through the crowds, he saw with a sinking feeling that he was walking at Lucifer's side, their heads bent together, oldest and youngest brother, talking urgently and earnestly.

When the Rebellion started, Aziraphale was hauled out of the archives and handed a flaming sword, told to join a platoon in the east quarter of the city and to be there _yesterday_ , which would have been confusing enough even if linear time had been properly invented at that point. And he absolutely _intended_ to obey, he really did, it was just that he was so nervous and disoriented and afraid, and his wretched sense of direction did its worst, and somehow he got so turned around he became hopelessly lost.

He finally recognised a particular corridor and followed it towards the sounds of battle, only to find himself stumbling into the Great Hall, where angels were fighting angels and Aziraphale couldn't even tell which side he was supposed to be on. Not that he was given a chance to sort it out; someone came at him at once, and he was forced to defend himself.

He'd never been trained with a sword or any other weapon, but in that moment, Aziraphale discovered to his shock that the skill of it had been woven into his form, a fluidity of movement he hadn't known he was capable of, a deftness of hand and arm that he'd never had a chance to put to use. He deflected the blows directed at him easily, but the physical skill couldn't abate the horror and confusion in his mind, the way he stepped back to try and end the confrontation, the way he kept stammering questions at the angel who was doing her best to strike him down. 

He tripped on something, staggered, and in an instant, her sword plunged into his chest. He'd never felt pain before; it was so stunning and terrible that he went limp and fell to the ground without a struggle. The other angel must have decided he was dead; she pulled her sword free with sickening slickness, and turned away.

Things went blurry after that. The wound wasn't enough to destroy him outright, but his blood - his essence - poured out of him in a tide of gold until he sank back against a pillar, the sword falling from his senseless fingers as his soul curled around itself protectively, trying to stem the flow and repair the damage. It must have begun to succeed after a while, because his vision cleared and the crystal-chime ringing in his ears faded, even though he was still too weak to move.

The battle had moved on, spilling into the surrounding corridors and up the great flight of stairs that led to the choirs, but in its wake it had left a trail of bodies. Aziraphale wasn't the only one soaked in his own blood, and many of the others lay far, far too still in pools of drying gold. He shuddered at the pain that echoed through his very essence, looking around for help, until he caught that familiar flash of red out of the corner of his eye, and for a second his whole being seemed to crystallise into terror and dread for someone not himself: _no, no, not him, please_. Then he turned his head, and saw that Raphael wasn't wounded; he was kneeling by one of the fallen, hands aglow with healing magic, desperation in every line of him.

Opposite him stood another angel, one Aziraphale had never seen before, with wings of black void that seemed to cut through the aether of Heaven, robes so white they were painful to look at, and a face like a mask of bone and gold filigree.

 _Azrael_. He knew it instinctively, and knew it as well from the things he'd seen written in the archive, the outlines of what was to come. _The final silence, entropy, annihilation_. Always a part of the Great Plan, always intended to stalk the new Creation and its living things, but Aziraphale had never imagined that it would be the blood of the Host that brought the Angel of Death into being.

"No," Raphael said, broken, pleading.

Azrael said nothing at all, just turned away, gliding across the hall to the next crumpled body in its pool of golden blood. Raphael let his hands fall limp in his lap, shoulders bowed and shaking.

"This isn't right," he went on, and Aziraphale didn't know if he was talking to himself or to Azrael. "How can She allow this - how can She _do_ this - how can She call this _good_ —"

He bowed lower, as if a weight were bearing down on him, but then one of his hands shot out, braced against the floor, and he pushed himself to his feet. He was moving all wrong, as if his limbs were too heavy, as if it was taking everything he had just to stay upright.

"I have to talk to Lucifer," he whispered to no-one, or to himself, or to Azrael, or to the Almighty, and he strode towards the far exit as if he'd forgotten everything except whatever burning drive now consumed him.

"Wait!" Aziraphale croaked, seized by a dread he couldn't define. "Don't—"

The effort of speaking sent ripples of pain through him, made him gasp and sink back against the pillar, but it was enough. Raphael spun towards him as if grabbed by the shoulder; a second later he was kneeling at Aziraphale's side, eyes wide and horrified, hands wet with the blood on his chest.

"Hold still," Raphael said, and Aziraphale could feel the waves of healing rippling through him, the sudden rush of relief as the pain eased. "That's it. Okay. You're going to be okay, just take it easy..."

Aziraphale nodded, letting his head fall back against the pillar in weariness and relief. Raphael paused just for a moment to look him over for other wounds, then squeezed his shoulder briefly before jumping to his feet.

He didn't head for the exit again. It was like he'd woken up, as he looked around the hall at the wounded who were not yet given over to Azrael. He snapped his fingers, summoning his golden staff to his hands, and when he rushed to the next angel in need of healing, there was no sign of that crushing weight that had been dragging him down.

After a while, other healers joined him, and Aziraphale found he had enough strength to stagger to his feet. He wished he could help, but no-one had taught him how to heal, and it wasn't woven into his being like the use of a weapon was. He looked down at the sword lying at his feet. He never wanted to touch it again. He looked at Raphael, who was working frantically to save an angel gone almost transparent as their essence drained away, and remembered that moment of terror when he’d thought the Archangel wounded or worse. He bent painfully and picked up the sword. He cast one last glance across the hall, and began to stumble in the direction of the battle.

In the end, he didn't make it in time, either to join the fight or to witness Michael's final struggle with Lucifer. He felt it, when Heaven was rent apart, when the great chasm opened, when Lucifer and his allies Fell. 

Later, he'd learn that there was no nuance, no discrimination: everyone who'd stood with Lucifer was cast out, whether or not they'd struck a blow, whether or not they'd tried to halt the fighting. Even the head archivist, who'd been insistent that both sides of the conflict should be accurately reported, had Fallen with the rest.

Later, he'd once again see the Archangels from a distance, four of them where once there had been five: Michael as cold as ice or steel or silence; Uriel sharp and vicious; Gabriel smiling falsely and snarling by turns. And Raphael...

Raphael's fire had been banked, his glow dimmed, his voice lowered. He didn't smile. He seemed stunned, his eyes fixed on something so far away no-one else could possibly see it. It hurt Aziraphale almost as badly as the sword wound had. He would have given anything to go to him, to try and offer some comfort, but he was still a Principality, and Raphael was still an Archangel, and surely there were plenty of Seraphim falling over themselves to give him anything he needed.

In all the turmoil after that, he didn't see Raphael again before they sent him down to Earth. Aziraphale didn't stop thinking about him, though, or about how haunted he'd looked in that moment, how uncertain, how... _frightened_.


	3. Chapter 3

Somehow, it had become a regular thing for Crowley to accompany Aziraphale back to the wall after the humans went to sleep. At first, Aziraphale just prompted him with some idle question about the stars, and then sat back and listened with rapt attention. Crowley hadn't been exaggerating: he really _could_ talk about them with almost limitless enthusiasm. He made building the galaxy sound like an awful lot of fun, even with the mishaps and schedule changes and rush jobs that he lamented endlessly. Aziraphale found himself wishing wistfully that he'd been created for that purpose too, and not _just_ because it would have meant spending more time with Raphael— or Crowley, rather.

It was odd, trying to adjust to the new name, the new presentation, but Aziraphale was nothing if not meticulous when it came to categorisation, and it seemed to matter to Crowley so very much. Truthfully, it wasn't as difficult as he might have expected. Raphael had been a distant and glamorous figure whose thoughts Aziraphale could only guess at. Crowley was...

Crowley could hardly keep his thoughts to himself, could hardly seem to keep his tongue still. He had questions, he had theories, he had _opinions_ that were like a breath of fresh air after Aziraphale had spent so long trying to quietly understand the wisdom of some of the Almighty's more baffling decisions.

("Okay, but seriously, why does it need that much neck?" Crowley had demanded the first time he'd seen a giraffe. "It looks ridiculous!"

"I suppose it has a sort of... majesty about it," Aziraphale had replied cautiously.

Crowley had _looked_ at him, one eyebrow raised, starting to grin.

" _Majesty_?"

"Er. Yes." 

Crowley had spent the next three days asking his opinion on the relative _majesty_ , on a scale of one to ten, of each new creature they came across. From anyone else, it would have felt unkind, but Crowley laughed every time like Aziraphale had come up with the funniest joke he'd ever heard, and Aziraphale couldn't contain a warm rush of pleasure and delight.)

Aziraphale would have been happy to listen to Crowley talk for hours, but after a while, as the nights wore on, Crowley started turning the conversation back on him, as if he were genuinely interested in what Aziraphale had to say about things. It took a bit of getting used to. As an archivist, most people weren't interested in what Aziraphale had to say, only what he could find for them in the records; as a Principality, no-one had ever much noticed him at all.

But oh, it was _intoxicating_ , once he got over his fear of saying something stupid - not that he didn't say stupid things, he said them quite frequently, in fact, it just didn't seem to matter - to have someone actually _listen_ for once. Aziraphale had never thought _he_ had particularly strong opinions about anything except maybe people who didn't reshelve records after consulting them, but all at once he found things bubbling to the surface of his mind that he'd never really allowed himself to dwell on before.

"I just don't see the need to make them nearly _identical_ ," Aziraphale was saying, holding up two blueish-purple berries, one in each hand. "It's very mean-spirited, if you ask me."

Crowley squinted at the berries from where he sat with one leg dangling over the edge of the wall, the other drawn up to his chest.

"So this one's—"

"This one is a blueberry," Aziraphale said, holding up his left hand. "And it is _delicious_. And _this_ one—" He brandished his right hand disdainfully. "—is a sloe, and even though it's edible, it is _very unpleasant_."

Crowley held out his hand curiously. Aziraphale handed him the blueberry. Crowley popped it into his mouth and bit down. A moment later, a look of absolute horror crossed his face. He turned and spat it out over the wall, narrowly missing a passing antelope.

"Sorry, that's the _good_ one?"

Aziraphale paused, seized by a horrible suspicion. He cautiously nibbled the remaining berry. It was sweet and juicy and conspicuously failed to make his mouth dry out with its astringent juices.

"Oh— oh no, I must have got them mixed up, I'm so sorry—"

Crowley made a face, working his tongue against his teeth to try and get the bitterness out of his mouth, but he was laughing through it.

"You've made your point."

"I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Course not. _Ugh_. Have you got anything else to take the taste away?"

Aziraphale did, as a matter of fact, have a small stash of fruit that he kept handy just in case he wanted to snack a little. It wasn't like he got hungry, but it broke up the long, boring days, to have something to nibble on. He rather sheepishly retrieved the woven grass basket Eve had given him, and by way of apology, selected the best of the lot - a perfectly ripe pear - and offered it to Crowley.

Crowley examined the pear warily from several angles.

"You're sure this one doesn't have an evil twin as well?"

"Quite sure," Aziraphale replied, blushing fiercely. "They're my favourite, actually. Oh, apart from grapes, maybe. Or cherries. Oh, but then, a really good _peach_..."

"Tried all of them, have you?"

"Well. Not _all_ of them." Aziraphale smoothed his robes nervously, embarrassed even though Crowley was smiling. "Some of them are... I mean, I assume they _must_ be edible, or they wouldn't be here, but really, there's one that's covered in _spikes_ , and another that has a terribly thick husk and then when you get it open there's just a sort of hairy stone at the centre..."

He stopped, because Crowley had taken a bite of the pear, and Aziraphale was enraptured by his expression. Crowley had tried a few of the humans' cooked foodstuffs, and seemed to enjoy their _tea_ concoction, but Aziraphale didn't think he'd tasted anything sweet before. It was apparently a revelation: his face lit up with such delight that for a moment Aziraphale couldn't think or breathe.

He realised he was in danger of being caught staring again, and scrambled to find his train of thought.

"And of course, not the apples," he blathered frantically, trying not to watch out of the corner of his eye as Crowley took another, larger bite of the pear. "Wouldn't dream of going near the Tree."

Crowley paused mid-chew and frowned. After a moment, he swallowed his mouthful of pear, and idly turned the rest of the fruit around in his palm, as if considering it.

"It's a bit weird, don't you think?" Crowley said slowly.

Aziraphale blinked.

"What, the pear? I thought you liked—"

"Not the pear, the pear's fantastic, I love the pear." Crowley took another bite as if to soothe Aziraphale's concerns, swallowed it with inhuman swiftness. "The Tree of Knowledge."

"What do you mean?"

Crowley looked over at the thick forest of Eden, calm and quiet beneath the starry sky.

"Why put it here at all?" he said. "I mean— everything else in the Garden is here for them to eat. Except the apples. And they're right there, not even a— a fence or something to keep the humans off. Just, we told them they couldn't have them. Didn't even explain why. Do _you_ know why?"

"Well— no, but—"

"What's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil? And if She really doesn't want them to, why has She put the thing right in front of them?"

His tone was speculative, casual, but Aziraphale saw with a jolt that the haunted look was back in his eyes. He hadn't seen it since meeting Crowley in the Garden. He didn't like the idea that it had perhaps been lurking there all this time, that Crowley's cheerful curiosity had been covering some deeper turmoil.

"I— I suppose we're not meant to understand," Aziraphale said hesitantly. It wasn't much of an answer, and he knew it. He'd just never let himself think about it before. "It's... ineffable, isn't it?"

At that, Crowley's gaze snapped back to him, eyes going narrow with something that for an awful moment looked like anger, until his mouth tilted into a smirk.

"Ineffable?"

"Well, you know..."

"That's a good one, that is." Crowley finished off the pear in a few more bites, chewing contemplatively before continuing. "Ineffable. Never have to explain yourself if it's _ineffable_ , do you?"

"Well, I— that is— the Almighty _doesn't_ have to explain Herself, does She?"

Crowley tossed the core of the pear into the trees and moodily watched it disappear.

"No," he said. "Even Lucifer couldn't make Her." And then, before Aziraphale could put words around the icy jolt that went through him, Crowley sighed, and his face softened into eager curiosity. "What else have you got in that basket, then?"

* * *

The first time Crowley showed up during the day, Aziraphale worried that something was wrong, but in response to his anxious questions, Crowley was sheepish and evasive.

"Just thought it would be nice to see the Garden in daylight," he said, then went on quickly, "Want to give me a tour?"

"I— shouldn't really leave my post—" Aziraphale said, without much conviction. He'd been leaving his post every night and nothing bad had happened yet. "I wouldn't want anything to happen to Adam and Eve because of me—"

"Nothing's going to happen while we're in the Garden with them," Crowley replied confidently. "In fact, they'll be safer that way, in my opinion."

Aziraphale bit his lip. He'd had an awkward conversation with Hadraniel from the northern wall the other day: the other Principality had asked why they hadn't run into each other on patrol for so many nights. Aziraphale had mumbled something about a change in schedule and fled as soon as he politely could. On the other hand, Crowley had a point, and Aziraphale would like— Aziraphale would _really_ like to spend more time with him.

"Well, all right, just for a little while then," Aziraphale conceded, guiltily aware that he hadn't put up much of a fight. But when the person doing the asking was an Archangel, was he even supposed to? "Oh, I can show you the grape vines!"

Crowley laughed.

"Any excuse for a snack," he teased. He spread his wings out wide; in the bright sunlight Aziraphale could see thousands of colours in their iridescence, like a rainbow haze dancing over the black feathers. "Come on, then, lead the way."

'A little while' turned into the rest of the day before Aziraphale knew it. He'd been about the Garden enough to show Crowley some of his favourite spots, but he hadn't _explored_ it as thoroughly as the humans, and as thoroughly as Crowley seemed to want to. Aziraphale tended to take wing as soon as he was bored of walking; Crowley insisted on scrambling over rough ground, ducking under low branches, and climbing the occasional small cliff. He wanted to know what was in every hollow tree and burrow, what was making that particular high-pitched call in the canopy, what was lurking at the bottoms of the streams and pools. Occasionally he lifted rocks or rotten logs, peering underneath them and seeming intrigued but simultaneously disappointed by the things he found there.

"Are you looking for something in particular?" Aziraphale asked. They'd paused to rest by one of Eden's natural pools, sitting side by side on a rocky overhang with their feet dangling in the cool water.

"Nah— well— sort of." Crowley looked a bit embarrassed. "I didn't do much of the design work on animals, you know. I'm not really..."

He paused, watching a deer step gracefully out of the bushes on the other side of the pool and bend her head to drink.

"I wasn't very good at it," Crowley went on, like he was admitting something humiliating. "Kept messing up the legs. They're more complicated than they look, you know, legs. So there's only a couple of things down here that I made. Thought it would be nice to have a look at them, see how they turned out. Doesn't really matter."

"What did you make?" Aziraphale asked, immediately making up his mind to keep a look out for it. "I've seen all sorts of creatures here."

Crowley lifted a hand and rubbed self-consciously at the looping golden sigil just in front of his ear.

"Well," Crowley said, "put it like this, I just sort of left the legs off entirely in the end..."

Aziraphale blinked, then laughed in realisation.

"Snakes!" he exclaimed. "You made the snakes? Oh, I've seen them, they're _lovely_! There's a green one that _shimmers_ , and a big, beautiful, dappled one that's longer than I am tall—"

He broke off because of the way Crowley was staring at him, all his attention and his blazing eyes fixed on Aziraphale, face a riot of surprise and disbelief and delight.

"You like them?" he said. "Really?"

"Yes, of course! They're—" Aziraphale tried to put words around what he'd found so compelling about the creatures. "It's the way they _move_ , they're so different from the other animals, even the other reptiles... and those wonderful patterns they have, and their clever tongues..."

"Really?" Crowley said again, like he could hardly believe it. "Everyone on the design committee was very polite, but I could tell they agreed with Gabriel when he called them worms with delusions of grandeur..."

"They look nothing like worms at all," Aziraphale replied indignantly. "How rude!"

He realised belatedly that he really had no right to be criticising Gabriel, let alone to another Archangel - but Crowley laughed that sudden laugh of his, and Aziraphale had never seen him look so pleased about anything, not even when he'd been talking about the stars.

"Well," Aziraphale went on, determined to keep that look on his face for as long as possible, "I know where to find the big one, if you want to see him in the flesh. He's usually over by the waterfall, in that thick grove of jungle trees. There's a rock there he likes to lie on. Come on, I'll show you."

He scrambled to his feet, and without thinking about it, offered a hand to help Crowley up. Crowley took it without even a pause, and didn't let go once he was standing.

"I've never met anyone like you," Crowley said, suddenly and awkwardly, as if the words had spilled out of him without permission.

"L-like _me_?" Aziraphale repeated, astounded. "I'm not— I'm just— I'm really very ordinary—"

"You are _not_ ," Crowley replied fiercely. He finally seemed to realise that he was still holding Aziraphale's hand, and let it go as a faint flush of colour rose to his cheeks. "You're the only one they sent down here who's bothered to look around, or get to know the humans, or _think_ about things. And everyone up _there_ — we did all this work to get things set up for the humans, we fought a _war_ over it, and now it's like none of them care, like they've all got something better to do..."

There was a tremor in his voice and a shadow in his eyes and Aziraphale wished very much that he had the courage to reach out and take Crowley's hand back in his own.

"I'm sure there's a lot to organise," he said instead. "There's a whole world out there."

Crowley frowned, and glanced in the direction of the wall.

"Yeah," he replied, "there is, isn't there?" He looked the other way, towards Adam and Eve's little camp. "So why is She keeping them in here?"

* * *

After that, daytime visits became the norm, even though the humans were usually busy during the daylight hours. Aziraphale worried that it must be terribly boring for Crowley to hang around on the wall with him, even though Crowley never seemed to mind. That was partly why he let himself be talked into further excursions into the Garden. Partly. Though if he were honest, it had a lot more to do with how much he adored the time spent with Crowley lost in that sea of green.

Crowley was just so _interested_ in everything, as easily absorbed by a strip of bark as by a butterfly, as fascinated by grass as by gazelles. Aziraphale had never met an angel so willing to learn and so eager to explore. Angels were built to fit certain requirements, to take on particular roles, and most were dismissive of anything outside their wheelhouse. Aziraphale had never quite realised how much of his existence he had already spent hastily backing away from topics of conversation that earned him disdainful glances or raised eyebrows. He'd never known how delightful it could be to argue earnestly over the relative merits of this creature or that, to speculate over and debate the thought process behind their design.

(Crowley had a lot to say about centipedes, mostly that they were the work of another seraphim who'd never liked him and was trying to make some sort of _point_. Aziraphale was fairly certain he'd seen something with even _more_ legs living in a rotten log, but had decided not to mention it until Crowley had calmed down a bit.)

Today they were somewhere in the northwest corner of the Garden, and Aziraphale was a little nervous about how close they were getting to the walls, though he tried to hide it. He had to hope Hadraniel and Nithael were as dedicated to staring out over the desert as they always claimed to be. He couldn't quite stop himself shooting occasional glances at the tall stone bulwarks visible through the stately coniferous trees. Crowley was currently halfway up one of them, a pine tree of some sort. Aziraphale had missed the exact reason, but it had something to do with a particular kind of bird he wanted a closer look at.

"Wouldn't it be easier to fly?"

"Nah, they nest in the lower branches and there's no space to— oh, hey, squirrels!"

There was an indignant chattering, and several pine cones fell from the branches onto Aziraphale. He made a noise of protest; Crowley's head poked out from the dense foliage.

"Sorry!" He paused, squinting at Aziraphale. "Wait, what've you done to your wings?"

Aziraphale blinked, then cast an alarmed look over his shoulder. He couldn't see anything immediately the matter. He started to spread them out, but was stopped by a sensation like dozens of tiny hands yanking on his feathers.

"Wh-what's wrong with them?" He was so disconcerted he actually turned on the spot trying to get a good look, like a dog chasing its tail. Crowley started to laugh, which reassured him that it probably wasn't anything _too_ bad. "Crowley! Tell me what's the matter!"

Crowley stopped laughing with an intake of breath like he'd been startled. When Aziraphale looked up at him, the expression on his face was a big open mess of things it was hard to put a label on, surprise and delight and gratitude and something _radiant_ that made Aziraphale catch his breath in turn. He couldn't fathom its source, until he realised it was the first time he'd called Crowley directly by his chosen name. It had been so automatic, he'd hardly even realised he was doing it.

"Don't panic," Crowley said quickly, disappearing back into the branches. "you're fine, you've just got—" 

There was a ferocious rustling, a startled yelp, and then a descent so rapid that one would have to be extremely generous not to call it a fall, even though Crowley did manage to land on his feet, wings splayed for balance, looking about as nonchalant as a cat who'd just done something stupid. He brushed bits of tree off his sleeves - which, like the rest of his white robes, were now smudged and smeared with green stains - then circled around behind Aziraphale. There was another series of those sharp little tugs. Crowley moved back into Aziraphale's view, holding up something green and stringy.

"This stuff," Crowley said triumphantly. "It's all up in your feathers. You must have walked right through a patch of it."

Aziraphale touched the green stem, which immediately stuck to his fingers unpleasantly. He made a face and shook his hand free, or attempted to. It took several tries to get the plant to fall away from his skin.

"Oh, how horrid." 

He twisted again, trying to raise his wings enough to see how badly entangled they were, and flinched when he felt the unpleasant tugging. It didn't _hurt_ or anything, but he didn't like the sensation at all. He managed to get an awkward grip on a piece of greenery, but trying to pull it free got him nowhere, and when he yanked too hard it _did_ hurt.

"Blast," Aziraphale muttered, trying to quell the burst of anxiety that came from the soul-deep fear of anything happening to his wings. It was just _vegetation_. Annoyingly sticky vegetation. In quite large quantities, going by the sensations as he flexed and spread his wings. "Oh, this is going to take _hours_ to fix..."

Crowley laughed at his indignation, which was very _unfair_ , Aziraphale thought, while at the same time beginning to see a certain funny side to the situation.

"Come here," Crowley said. "I'll help, it won't take that long."

Aziraphale almost tripped over his own robe as he turned, suddenly awkward in a way he hadn't been with Crowley in... oh, days and days. His heart was once again refusing all dignity and decorum, and felt like it was trying to climb up into his throat. He was a little afraid Crowley would _hear_ it.

"I— I couldn't possibly ask you to—" he stammered.

"You're not asking, I'm offering," Crowley replied easily. "You'll never get it all out by yourself."

He was probably right, was the thing. Angel wings were notoriously resistant to miracles, existing as they did in a rather odd state between the corporeal and the ethereal. But an Archangel grooming a Principality's wings - Aziraphale quailed a little at the thought of it, of how staggeringly presumptuous it would be to expect such a favour.

He'd hesitated long enough that Crowley's amusement faltered. Aziraphale hated the way his shoulders tensed and his face went still, the way he suddenly seemed to remember himself and the lines he was supposed to fit inside.

"If you're sure?" Aziraphale found himself saying. "If it wouldn't be too much of a bother?"

It was well worth the nervous flutter in his stomach to see Crowley light up again.

"'Course not! Come back this way, there was that clearing—"

Aziraphale found himself hustled into a space ringed with pine trees at the foot of a small cliff, a bubbling spring rising from its rocks and filling a crystal-clear pool in a basin of smooth rocks. Crowley had told him that this sort of terrain - and this sort of vegetation, particularly the delicate spindly flowers that grew from cracks in the stone - would normally be found in colder climates, but that Eden had been filled with "a bit of everything". It was as warm here as everywhere else in the Garden, exactly the right ambient temperature for the humans to be comfortable, never so hot as to cause distress. The cold-loving alpine flowers seemed to be flourishing anyway.

Crowley ushered him over to a patch of soft moss, or some other ground-clinging growth. It had a springy, cushioning texture that was much more pleasant to sit on than bare earth or rock. Aziraphale had to keep forcing himself to relax his fingers where they were clutching at his robes. Oh, Heaven help him, why had he said yes? He was a _wreck_ already and he could hardly explain to Crowley all the reasons why. Some of them he couldn't even have explained to himself. 

"If you could just— just get the worst of it—" Aziraphale managed as he settled into a kneeling position, back ramrod-straight, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling as he heard Crowley sitting down behind him. He couldn't seem to stop his wings from fluttering about nervously. "I'm sure I can—"

Crowley caught hold of the top joint of his right wing, stilling it gently but firmly, and Aziraphale's sentence ended in a rush of indrawn breath that was thankfully too quiet to truly be called a gasp, and hopefully too quiet for Crowley to hear.

"How have you picked up so _much_ of it?" Crowley asked, his voice suddenly closer as he presumably leaned forward to look. Aziraphale trembled faintly and closed his eyes to try and will himself into stillness. "If I hadn't been with you all morning I'd think you'd been rolling around in the bushes."

Aziraphale made a garbled sound as Crowley began picking out the bits of sticky weed. Oh, he did _not_ like the little tugs and tweaks it made as it came free, but after each piece had been disposed of, Crowley ran his fingers through Aziraphale's feathers, smoothing them down and soothing away the sensation, and _that_ was... that was quite _lovely._ He might have expected Crowley to be impatient with it, but instead, he worked carefully and thoroughly, minimising the way the grass tugged on Aziraphale's feathers, checking each section to make sure he'd removed every last trace. His fingers were deft and gentle. Aziraphale remembered him cradling stars in those hands, and was glad Crowley couldn't see his face.

Despite himself, his nervous tension began to ebb. He couldn't quite let himself relax into it fully, but his hands had fallen lax in his lap, his heart had resumed a more normal rhythm, and his breathing had slowed. He'd never actually done this, even though grooming was a common social activity among angels. Among friends, at least. And it wasn't that Aziraphale didn't _have_ friends, not exactly. But none he'd felt inclined to sit around with engaging in physical contact.

"Who do you think came up with this?" Crowley mused, jolting Aziraphale out of his slightly dazed thoughts. "And _why_?"

"Came up with...?"

"This stuff." Crowley leaned forward, close enough that Aziraphale could feel the warmth of him between his wings, and dangled a piece of the sticky grass right in front of Aziraphale's face. A faint waft of pine scent clung to his fingertips. "Someone created it. Sat there and said, _'you know what this planet needs, a weed with lots of little tiny hooks on it that gets stuck on your wings'_. What a _wanker_."

Aziraphale gave a startled laugh. Crowley tossed away the piece of grass and leaned back. There was a pause, and then his fingers were back in Aziraphale's feathers, carding idly through the down. Aziraphale couldn't tell if that had been the last piece of sticky grass, and didn't particularly care to ask. His nerves had eased entirely. As far as he was concerned, Crowley was welcome to do this all day.

"Maybe it serves some purpose," Aziraphale suggested. "In the Great Plan."

Crowley hummed dubiously. He buried his fingers deep in the feathers right at the shoulder joint, and Aziraphale shivered and leaned into it before he could stop himself. Crowley seemed to take this as encouragement, and did it again. Aziraphale sighed happily.

"I dunno, felt like an awful lot of it was just... people making things up as they went along," Crowley said after a moment. "But then, I... maybe I didn't pay enough attention. I was... I'm... well. Just not very good at making stuff that isn't stars, turns out."

There was something aching in his voice that jolted Aziraphale out of his comfortable state of relaxation.

"But you make such _lovely_ stars—"

"Used to," Crowley said quietly. "But they're done now, you know? It's all finished, up there. No more stars needed."

Aziraphale didn't mean to jerk away from Crowley's hands and turn to look at him, but he was so dismayed he couldn't help himself.

"Oh, but— really? Surely they'll need— need topping up or something, as time goes on...?"

"Nope." Crowley shrugged, clearly striving for casual. He wasn't quite getting there. "Millions of years on the clock for most of them, and they only have to last until Armageddon."

He suddenly scrambled to his feet, brushing down his robes, and Aziraphale felt a surge of disappointment that the grooming was apparently over, followed by immediate self-reproach for being so greedy.

"Anyway, your wings are clear now," Crowley went on. "Just try not to roll in any more grass."

"I didn't _roll_ _in_ anything!"

Crowley laughed at his indignation, and Aziraphale couldn't help smiling back. He realised belatedly that he should have offered to return the favour - not that Crowley's perfect black wings needed any extra attention - but it was too late now. The moment was over.

He got to his feet and stretched his wings carefully, relieved by the lack of any of those nasty little tugs.

"Thank you," he said. "It really would have taken me hours..."

"Don't mention it." Crowley glanced up at the sky. "Looks like it's getting towards evening. I'd better head back."

"Aren't you coming to the campfire?"

"Not today. Michael scheduled a meeting, dunno when I'll be done with it." Crowley grimaced. "Dunno why I even need to be there, to be honest."

There it was again, that uncertainty poorly masked by self-deprecation, that faint echo of the haunted look that was stamped so painfully on Aziraphale's memory. He wanted to say something to contradict it, something to reflect how brilliant and bright Crowley was, how absolutely necessary Aziraphale believed him to be.

His tongue tripped over the words, mortified by his own surge of emotion, and in the end, all he said was, "Well, I suppose I'll see you tomorrow then?"

Even that felt presumptuous, like he was demanding Crowley's company, but Crowley shot him that delighted, grateful smile again, so perhaps it had been the right thing to say after all.

* * *

Crowley didn't come at all the next day.

Aziraphale told himself that was nothing to be surprised about; if anything, he should have been surprised that Crowley was coming to the Garden as often as he had been. And who knew how long Archangel meetings took? Time didn't run quite the same way in Heaven as it did on Earth.

Time seemed to be running especially _slowly_ on Earth on this particular occasion. By noon Aziraphale was restless, bored, and aching to slip away from his post and wander through the trees. He'd already run out of snacks, and he kept thinking about that lovely plum tree in the south-west quadrant, and the cool shade of its branches. He almost felt brazen enough to go alone, but the truth was that he wouldn't enjoy the place half so much without Crowley's company. He resigned himself to pacing gloomily up and down the sun-scorched stones.

(And if his thoughts kept straying to a fantasy of sitting under that plum tree with Crowley, grooming his iridescent wings in return for yesterday, well, that was between him and his flaming sword.)

It seemed like half of eternity had trundled by at a snail's pace before the sun finally dipped behind the western trees. The shadows lay long over Eden as Aziraphale took wing. There was something about the dark hollows in the trees that made him shiver in a way they never had before. He hovered in mid-air, frowning down at the thickly wooded space. It all looked the same as ever. And yet...

He shook off the sensation, landed in his usual spot, and headed for the humans' campsite. There was no flicker of flame today. Crowley obviously hadn't arrived yet. It occurred to Aziraphale with some dismay that maybe he wasn't going to come tonight, either.

The humans were unusually quiet, Aziraphale noticed at once, and he shivered again, a prickle of alarm on the back of his neck. Adam's shoulders were hunched, his face drawn into some emotion Aziraphale had never seen on him before, and he kept shooting wary glances at Eve. Eve was preparing the evening meal on the other side of the firepit, but all her movements had an edge to them, something coiled and taut in her body.

"Good heavens," Aziraphale said before he could stop himself, "is everything all right?"

Relief bloomed over Adam's face, but Eve looked at him with wounded eyes, as if Aziraphale had hurt her somehow. It made Aziraphale feel wretched, like he'd crushed a helpless creature under his foot, though he couldn't for the life of him understand what he might have done.

"It's fine," Eve said after a moment, returning her attention to the food she was folding carefully into vine-leaf parcels. "It's nothing."

"It's not nothing," Adam said heatedly. "Why won't you tell—"

"I don't have to tell you everything!"

"Er—" Aziraphale had never heard Eve raise her voice to Adam like that. He wrung his hands for a moment, wishing desperately that Crowley were here. "Tell him what? What's happened?"

"Nothing," Eve said insistently.

Adam looked at her, his face a picture of struggle. His hands clenched on his knees. He looked at Aziraphale, looked back at Eve, then set his jaw and seemed to make up his mind.

"Eve was talking to someone today. A stranger. She won't tell me who it was."

Eve's head snapped up and she glared at him with such betrayal that Adam flinched.

"A stranger?" Aziraphale glanced between them, increasingly out of his depth. "Another angel?"

"She won't tell me," Adam repeated, half-truculent, half-anxious.

"I don't have to tell you everything," Eve said for the second time, looking away. "Aziraphale, please would you light the fire?"

"I— yes, of course, my dear." 

Aziraphale went to kneel by the stacked wood, drawing his sword to ignite the kindling, even as his thoughts raced. He could _make_ Eve tell him, couldn't he? But that would be— he didn't like the idea of that, somehow. After all, why shouldn't she have secrets? Why shouldn't she choose what of herself and her thoughts she would share - with Adam, with the angels, with anyone else in the world?

On the other hand, what stranger had she spoken with, to bring about such a change in her demeanour? He was supposed to be guarding them: wasn't it his duty to find out the truth, whether Eve liked it or not? He rose to his feet, sheathing his sword, and turned to look back at the darkening woods. Perhaps some other angel, one less accustomed to human company, had confused or upset her? Gabriel certainly didn't seem to know how to speak to them without pronouncements and posturing...

Or perhaps...

The beating of wings overhead made him jump, and for a terrible moment Aziraphale thought it really was Gabriel, coming to chastise him for his conduct. Then he spotted Crowley's copper hair glimmering in the starlight, and a wave of relief went through him. Crowley was so much better at talking to the humans than he was. He'd know what to do.

"Sorry I'm late," Crowley called as he circled around and came in for a landing. "Got stuck with a—"

His feet touched the ground, and he stumbled, even though there was nothing to trip him. His eyes went very wide, his shoulders went up, and his wings reared into a defensive posture as he spun to stare intently into the heart of the Garden. Adam and Eve stilled, watching him with confusion and concern.

Aziraphale felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, an awful cold pit of suspicion.

"What is it?" he asked, even though he had a terrible premonition that he already knew.

"There's a demon here," Crowley replied, low and taut. "You can't feel it?"

"I—" That shiver, that prickle on the back of his neck. "I didn't know what it was—"

"What's a demon?" Eve demanded, looking between the two of them.

"Is that who you were talking to?" Adam asked almost at the same time.

" _Talking_ to?" Crowley repeated, whipping around to stare at Eve in horror.

Eve scowled, drawing herself up and crossing her arms over her chest defiantly.

"What's a demon?" she asked again.

Crowley glanced almost desperately between the two of them, and Aziraphale realised with a shock that he was _afraid_. Then something dark and cold came into his eyes, made them almost unrecognisable, and Crowley turned back towards the forest.

"Something that shouldn't be here," he said in a clipped tone. "But don't worry. We'll take care of it. Come on, Aziraphale. Bring your sword."

He started towards the trees without so much as glancing back to see if Aziraphale was following. Aziraphale hesitated, but in the end, he couldn't disobey, could he? Even though that look in Crowley's eyes made him want to seize him by the arm and keep him here in the firelight, far away from whatever frightened him so badly.

"We'll, ah, we'll be right back," Aziraphale told the humans, and hurried after Crowley.


	4. Chapter 4

There had never been any reason for Aziraphale to find the night unsettling until now. Now, the shadows beneath the trees were ominous and full of threat. The calls of the night creatures made him flinch when they rang out too close by, and every rustle and snapping twig had him leaping half out of his skin.

Crowley was moving so _fast_ , like a fox darting from tree to tree. That lanky corporation was well-suited to it, Aziraphale supposed, but he was struggling to keep up, and he definitely didn't have time to look where he was going. He was convinced he was going to fall into a ditch, or run face-first into another tree.

Off in the trees came a long drawn-out wail, almost a scream, and Aziraphale stumbled, a startled yelp escaping his own throat. Crowley whirled at once, raising one hand like he was about to summon holy lightning. Aziraphale righted himself sheepishly.

"Sorry— sorry, I just— startled me—"

Crowley started to say something, then stopped, looking at Aziraphale like he was just noticing how out of breath he was. He let his hand fall, and waited for Aziraphale to catch up.

"Only an owl," Crowley said. He didn't immediately start rushing off through the trees again. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes, I'm quite all right," Aziraphale replied, scrubbing unexpected beads of sweat from his brow. He'd known his body could perspire in _theory_ , but since he didn't tend to be overly affected by external temperatures, he hadn't experienced it firsthand. He didn't think he cared for it at all. "This corporation's not really built for running, I'm afraid."

"Sorry," Crowley said, unexpectedly contrite. "Didn't think. Shouldn't be running anyway, we're making too much noise."

Aziraphale shivered.

"Is there really— are you sure there's a demon here?"

Crowley nodded, head turning in the direction he'd been moving, like he was scenting the air.

"Yeah. It's— that way. Right in the heart of the Garden." He glanced back at Aziraphale. "Were you on the wall all day?"

"I— yes—" 

Oh, how ironic that the fact he'd done his duty for once felt like an admission of failure.

"I _knew_ it," Crowley muttered. He began to walk again, though at a much more reasonable pace. "Knew it was stupid just to have people on the walls, but Michael wouldn't _listen_ to me! None of them ever—"

He bit off the rest of the words. Aziraphale trailed wretchedly after him.

"I'm sorry, I should have—"

"No, no." Crowley spun back to face him, stopping so abruptly that Aziraphale almost crashed into him. Crowley caught him by the shoulders to steady him, eyes glowing golden in the darkness, lighting his face from strange angles. He didn't look at all human in that moment, but there was no hiding the chagrin in his expression. "It's not your fault. It's _not_. You did exactly what they told you to do, what you were _supposed_ to do. I just don't understand—"

He closed his eyes, and his sharp features vanished into the soft shadows. Aziraphale gulped, and then, very daring, reached up to take Crowley's hands from his shoulders and hold them in his own. It was only for a moment, a warm press of fingers before he let go, but it did wonders. Crowley sighed, and opened his eyes again, and some of the frantic tension eased out of him.

"It's okay," Crowley said, clearly as much to reassure himself as Aziraphale. "We can still fix this. Come on."

Crowley led the way unerringly, following some signal that Aziraphale couldn't sense. Or at least, couldn't sense in the same way; the further they went into the forest, the more he felt a prickling like static electricity over his skin, caught a whiff of some burnt scent like the remnants of a campfire. He catalogued the sensations automatically. He would know what a nearby demon felt like in the future.

They emerged into a clearing ringed by oak trees. The air seemed stiller here, the calls of the night forest muted, and there was a sense of great age lying on the place, even though it was as new as the rest of Eden. Crowley paused in the centre of the clearing, turning this way and that.

The owl screamed again from the nearby trees. Aziraphale only jumped a _little_ this time.

"What is it?" he asked, as Crowley continued to hesitate.

"I don't..." Crowley turned slowly on the spot, took an uncertain step towards the largest of the oak trees. He peered up into its branches. "It should be here, but there's only..."

Aziraphale followed his gaze, and found himself unexpectedly meeting two round, black, gleaming eyes set in a flat white face. The owl stared boldly back at him, and let out another unholy screech, as if it was trying to scare him on purpose. Which was ridiculous, of course, except... there was something about those eyes... not so blank as the other creatures of the Garden... not so empty of thought...

" _Oh_ ," Crowley gasped. "Shit, it's— it can—"

He grabbed Aziraphale's arm and hauled him back, just as the owl launched itself from the branch. It plummeted like a stone towards the foot of the tree, and halfway there, it _changed_. The feathered form flowed up and out, and by the time it hit the ground, its shape had entirely altered.

The demon shook out her hair and beat her wings once to settle the feathers. They were brown-patterned and bespeckled, and her hair was a mass of tawny curls as untamed as Eve's. Her skin was an unearthly white, the colour of silver birch bark, and her eyes were jet black and slightly too round, shimmering like pools of ink. Like the two angels, she wore a linen robe, but hers was black and rough-looking, as if in pointed opposition to the fine white cloth of Heaven.

" _It_ can _hear_ you," she snapped. "What do you want?"

She seemed irritated, but not afraid. She didn't look anything like Aziraphale had imagined. They'd been told that the demons were twisted beyond recognition, that there was nothing left of the angels they once were, but her face was familiar. Aziraphale was almost sure he'd run into her once or twice before the Fall. A Virtue, he thought she'd been, or a Power; Second Sphere, for certain.

"What do we _want_?" Crowley repeated incredulously. "What do we— you're a _demon_!"

The demon looked down at herself, then back up at him with naked disdain. She didn't recognise Crowley, Aziraphale realised. She probably thought he was the same rank as Aziraphale.

"No _shit_." The sarcasm could have cut steel. "Are you going to fight me? I'd rather not, to be honest, but if you insist..."

Crowley made an inarticulate sound, the wind quite taken out of his sails. Aziraphale was feeling very much on the back foot as well. He wasn't sure what to do, and Crowley wasn't giving him any leads. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword, but it felt rather rude to draw it in the middle of what had so far been a civil, if acerbic, conversation.

The demon eyed him warily.

"Do we have to?" she asked. "I just _got_ here, I'm not looking for a fight."

"What did you say to Eve?" Crowley demanded, taking a step forward.

The demon smirked.

"The female human? Just a thing or two she needed to hear. It's disgraceful the way your lot are treating her, you know."

"Excuse me?" Aziraphale said, affronted. "We're taking very good care of them, thank you very much—"

"You can't keep them locked up forever," the demon retorted. "Like little wind-up toys that bow and scrape and mumble prayers..."

"They aren't locked up," Crowley replied, but there was sudden uncertainty in his face, as if he were remembering his own questions about the rest of the world. "They— they have free will—"

"And four square walls around this place, and an angel with a flaming sword on each one to keep them from leaving," said the demon, with a devastating, vicious smile.

Aziraphale's breath caught under his breastbone, doubt ripping open his own assumptions. Crowley was right, was the thing, it _didn't_ make sense to put guards on the walls to keep out demons - the one standing before them was proof enough of that - but it certainly _would_ be an effective way of keeping the humans in...

Crowley shook himself, a terrible fierce light coming into his eyes.

"That's enough," he said. "You're not welcome here. Get thee—"

The demon moved fast. Her fingernails were talons, Aziraphale saw, as sharp and wicked as blades, and they raked through the air where Crowley should have been. He was even faster than her, leaping back with a powerful beat of his wings and a startled yell.

"Oh, none of that, now," said the demon, poised and ready to strike again. "I don't want to get blood all over this body just yet, and you _really_ don't want to find out what discorporation feels like, I promise you."

There was a dark curl of emotion in the words, an intimacy with death that made Aziraphale shudder. The threat seemed to push Crowley over the edge. His fists clenched, his wings spread wide and furious, and his eyes glowed so bright they were almost painful to look at. Holy light crackled over him like electricity and ran greedy tendrils out over the grass and leaves, charring them as it lashed back and forth.

The demon's whole attitude changed in a second as she jumped back, eyes wide and darting to and fro looking for an escape, hands relaxing out of their claw-curl and into a palms-out, pacifying gesture.

"Okay, okay, easy there," she said urgently, "there's really no need for— look, I haven't _done_ anything, you can't smite me!"

"You're a demon," Crowley snarled.

"Yes, got the memo, thanks. And the all-expenses-paid trip into a pit of boiling sulphur. But I figure we're square now, aren't we? We rebelled, we got punished, now we're doing our own thing..."

"It... doesn't work like that," Crowley replied, but the uncertainty was back, the doubt. "You can't just—"

"Why not?" the demon demanded. "We're part of the Great Plan too, aren't we?"

Crowley froze as if time itself had tightened its fist on him, not a breath, not a blink, not a feather stirring in the night breeze. The lightning curled back on itself, coiled into a space between spaces, and vanished. His eyes dimmed, then shivered closed, and a look of such devastation took over his face that Aziraphale almost made a sound of secondhand pain.

He stepped forward, drawing the demon's attention away from Crowley, though he was careful to leave his sword alone. He didn't want to invite those talons anywhere near his soft corporeal flesh.

"That's all very well," Aziraphale said, fussing nervously with his sleeves and trying to sound stern, "but we _are_ meant to thwart you, you know. Can't have you just running around doing whatever evil you like."

"Who says I've done anything evil?" the demon asked sweetly.

Something snapped quietly inside Aziraphale.

"Oh, well," he said with a polite smile. "If you're up here doing _good deeds_ , that's entirely different—"

The demon looked horrified.

"I am _not_! I would _never_! Don't you _dare_ accuse me of doing good!"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Aziraphale replied mildly.

"Look," the demon said, scowling at him. "The way I see it, I've got my job to do, and you've got yours. You're going to try and stop me, fair enough, but there's no need to get—" she shot Crowley a look, "— _nasty_ about it."

Crowley said nothing, still a haunted statue of doubt. Aziraphale cleared his throat.

"So what you're saying is that there should be a certain amount of... professional courtesy," Aziraphale said, "on both sides?"

"Exactly."

"Well," Aziraphale went on, "that sounds like something I'll have to take up with my superiors." This time he carefully did _not_ look at Crowley. "Get some— some clarification on the proper procedures."

"Right." The demon was grinning now, a touch too smug for Aziraphale's taste, but he'd let it lie if it meant ending this whole disastrous encounter. "You do that. You're, what, unranked? Third Sphere?"

"I am a _Principality_ ," Aziraphale replied indignantly. The demon was unimpressed, but also fortunately didn't notice that Crowley hadn't answered. "And you are?"

"Lilith," said the demon.

She spread her wings wide, and before Aziraphale could blink, she transformed back into an owl. The ghostly white creature skimmed over his head, making him duck instinctively, and disappeared into the trees on the far side of the clearing.

"Nice talking to you," Lilith called, voice fading with distance. "Hope I don't see you around."

Aziraphale let out a breath of relief. He turned worriedly to Crowley, who was still frozen in place, though his arms had crept up across his chest, tightly interlocked as if to protect his heart.

"Are— are you all right—?"

" _Are_ they?" Crowley said, voice cracking. Before Aziraphale could ask for clarification, he went on in a desperate, rushing tumble like a landslide. "Are they part of the Great Plan? Were they always? Was— was all of that— did they even do anything wrong, in that case? If they were always supposed to— if Lucifer was meant to— then why should they be punished, it isn't _fair_! Or was it a test—? She never said She'd be testing _us_ but— did it matter what we did, or what we chose? Was it all decided in advance? Was I— would I— or was I supposed to—?"

"Crowley," Aziraphale interrupted, alarmed. Crowley was shaking now, the tips of his wings trembling with the intensity of his emotions. "I don't understand—"

"Of course you don't!" Crowley almost wailed. "No-one does, no-one else knows how _close_ I—"

He bit off the words, spun so that his back was to Aziraphale, and then launched himself into the air on his midnight wings. Aziraphale hastily followed, awkward as a fledgling as he strove to catch up.

"Crowley!"

Crowley only flew faster, riding the thermals to new heights. Aziraphale resigned himself to trailing after him at a distance. Somewhere in the forest below, an owl screeched. He wondered if it was Lilith, or just one of the real owls that lived in the trees. He wondered why no-one had told them that demons could change their shape.

He wondered if Crowley intended to keep flying to the ends of the Earth and beyond, charting a straight course to the stars he'd made with such boundless fervour and love.

Just as Aziraphale thought he would have to give up and let Crowley go on alone, the other angel turned on a wingtip and dived. Aziraphale made a considerably less graceful turn, and saw that Crowley was now dropping towards the humans' camp. Aziraphale bit his lip. He had a feeling that they weren't going to resume their pleasant evening habits with the humans. He had a feeling nothing was quite going to be the same from now on.

He followed Crowley down towards the flickering orange star that was the campfire, and tried not to shiver at how tiny and isolated it looked, surrounded by a sea of dark trees.

* * *

No, nothing was the same.

Crowley was in the Garden almost constantly, but there were no more long conversations on the wall or expeditions through the trees. He was obsessed with the humans, with keeping them safe and away from Lilith. He circled the sky above their camp, strode restlessly through the trees in wide circuits, and made such a nuisance of himself that Eve finally snapped and told him to _go away,_ which left him so stricken that Aziraphale didn't know what to do.

Eve's behaviour was changing day by day. Aziraphale wasn't sure if she had spoken to Lilith again since their first encounter; Crowley couldn't be there all the time, and Eve seemed to seize every chance to slip away. Aziraphale would be talking to her one minute, get distracted briefly, and when he looked back she'd be gone. 

She was snappish and withdrawn, she clearly resented their presence, and she sometimes sat silent, staring at her lap, interlocking her fingers over her stomach - recently swelling, perhaps from all the potatoes - as if they were a puzzle she was trying to figure out. Adam didn't know what to do with himself, would reach out and draw back by turns, and sometimes throw himself into such excesses of gardening that the poor shrubs started to look quite afraid for their foliage.

It was all rather horrid, and the worst part was that Aziraphale was beginning to feel like they were somehow doing the _wrong thing_.

It was hard to explain even to himself. They were angels; of course they should be preventing the demon from whatever it was she was up to. Of course they should protect the humans. Of course they knew better than Eve what danger she was putting herself in. And yet...

And yet, as the days went by and Eve grew pricklier, and Crowley grew nearly frantic, Aziraphale found himself imagining a sensation he had not yet experienced, but would one day recognise: a hand tightening on a bar of slippery soap, only to send it shooting off into the depths of the bath.

He would have liked to do exactly what he'd told Lilith he would, and ask for clarification from higher up. Send a memo or two, get some sort of process documentation sent down. If Crowley hadn't been here, that was exactly what he would have done. But, well, Crowley _was_ here. An Archangel, supreme above all in Heaven save for God Herself. By _definition_ , he couldn't do the wrong thing.

"I just wondered," Aziraphale began hesitantly one night when he'd persuaded Crowley to take a break from his pacing and leave the humans alone for a bit, "what the others think?"

"Others?" Crowley asked, distracted by a star that he'd recently noticed was a bit off-centre.

"The other Archangels. About the, er. The demon situation."

There was a long pause.

"Haven't told them," Crowley said finally, and Aziraphale's heart sank like a stone. "They don't know I'm down here, can't blow my cover." His shoulders hunched defensively. "Not like they care, anyway."

"Well, in that case, should I, er, file a report, or—"

"If it makes you feel better, go ahead," Crowley replied snappishly. "But what'll you do if Gabriel tells you get back on your wall and stay there?"

Aziraphale did not end up filing a report.

* * *

It all came to a head some nights later, when they found Adam alone and morose by the unlit fire.

"Gone off again," he answered when Crowley demanded to know where Eve was. "I couldn't stop her, and she can run faster than me."

Crowley made a frustrated, furious noise, and turned towards the trees.

"Perhaps we should just— perhaps we should let her be," Aziraphale blurted out. "I— I almost think we're, well, I think maybe we should—"

Crowley wheeled back to face him, incredulous and more than a little angry.

"You think _what_? That we should let her be corrupted by the demon?"

"Corrupted?" Adam put in, eyes wide. "What does that mean?"

"It's— oh, I don't have time for this!" Crowley flexed his wings, preparing to take flight. "I'm going to find her and bring her back here and sort out that demon once and for all." He shot a glance over his shoulder at Aziraphale that was perhaps meant to be cold, but which contained far too much betrayal to do anything but burn. "You can stay here if you'd rather."

He launched himself into the sky, leaving Aziraphale feeling like he'd been slapped with something cold and wet, but also, to his own surprise, rather cross. Of course he _should_ defer to Crowley's judgement, everyone in Heaven would agree, but he found himself none too pleased with being ordered around so casually after all the time they'd spent together.

"I don't understand what's happening," Adam said miserably, prodding at the cold ashes of last night's fire. "We were happy. Eve was happy. And now it's like she doesn't even like me anymore."

Aziraphale winced, feeling all too sympathetic to Adam's plight. He snapped his fingers. The fire sprang to life; Adam jumped back with a yelp from the sudden fierce flames.

"I'm sure it's all a big misunderstanding," Aziraphale said, with a confidence he didn't feel. "I'd better go after them. You just wait here and, er, cook the potatoes or something, would you?"

* * *

He found them easily enough by following the shouting.

They were in a grove of redwoods, almost as tall as the walls of Eden themselves, and that was clearly no coincidence, going by the rough rope ladder that lay half-woven at the foot of one of the mighty trees. Lilith was in her human form, but perched on one of the high branches, well out of the way, and watching proceedings with interest.

"—all sorts of dangers out there!" Crowley was yelling. "You can't just _climb the wall_ —"

"Why not?" Eve demanded. Her hands were on her hips; the swell of her stomach was more noticeable now. "I have free will, don't I? I can choose what I want to do!"

"Yes, but not all the choices are good ones! Some of them are bad! Some of them are _terrible_! And what about Adam—?"

"What if I don't want to do everything with Adam all the time?" Eve shouted. "What if I don't want to be with Adam at all?"

Crowley stopped and stared at her, shocked.

"You don't?"

At that, Eve's fury faltered. She folded her arms protectively over her chest and her expression turned fragile and full of remorse.

"I— I didn't say that," she said quietly. "It's just, what _if_ I didn't? Would you make me?"

"Wh— but— that's—" 

Crowley had that awful look on his face again, the one that made Aziraphale think of the moment that Lucifer's forces had Fallen, of the echoing soul-scream that had gone through all of Heaven. The one that he was beginning to realise was an echo of some long-festering doubt that was tearing holes in Crowley's heart.

Aziraphale hurried forward, clearing his throat.

"Perhaps we could all just... settle down a little," he suggested.

"Hey, she's got a point," Lilith put in from overhead, viciously self-satisfied. "Don't you think she deserves an answer?"

The problem was, Aziraphale didn't _know_ the answer. It had simply never occurred to him that Eve might not want Adam, that Adam might not want Eve. They had been created together, created _for_ one another. Aziraphale had even wistfully thought that it was rather wonderful, to come into existence knowing your heart had a destination, and that it would be welcomed when it arrived.

"It's _ineffable_ ," Aziraphale said desperately. Lilith snorted. "That means we _can't_ know all the ins and outs of it - we can't understand exactly - look, if you _do_ want to be with Adam, what does it matter what would happen if you didn't?"

"Maybe I don't know what I want," Eve said. Aziraphale thought it was supposed to be defiant, but it came out heartbreakingly lost. "Maybe I'm trying to find out."

She'd fearlessly climbed cliffs and leapt from the top of waterfalls into deep pools, as sure-footed as one of the gazelles. He'd never seen her so uncertain of the ground beneath her. Anger swelled up in his chest, and he'd have been hard put to say who, exactly, it was aimed at, although if Lilith weren't all the way up in that tree...

"I don't see why you shouldn't," Aziraphale said, as gently as he knew how, even as his pulse was thundering in his ears. "But perhaps not by climbing the wall with a homemade rope ladder? It doesn't look terribly sturdy, you know, and you might give Hadraniel an awful shock if you popped up right under his feet..."

Eve cast a doubtful look at the rope ladder. 

"Don't listen to him," Lilith snapped, voice sharp. There was a scrambling flutter, and she landed in a crouch between Aziraphale and Eve. "You can't trust an angel, you know that now. He'll only ever tell you what he thinks you ought to know."

"That isn't true!" Crowley burst out.

Eve's chin had gone up angrily again.

"So what about this?" she asked, gesturing at her rounded stomach. "When were you going to tell me about this?"

Crowley opened his mouth and shut it again.

"About what?"

"That I'm with child," Eve replied.

Aziraphale stared at her, then stared _at_ her, into the aether between the skin of the world and the flesh of its truth, and _oh_ , yes, she _was_ , there was new life growing in her already—

"You didn't know?" Crowley said, stunned.

Eve threw up her arms.

"How could I know? How was I supposed to know that taking pleasure with Adam was only a means to an end? How could I know that _I_ was given the sole duty of _bearing children_? How was I supposed to know you'd already bound me to Adam whether I liked it or not—"

"But the animals know," Crowley broke in, and Aziraphale wished desperately that he would _stop_ , that he could keep his mouth shut for just a _moment_. "The— all the animals know, they know when they're pregnant and what causes it—"

"She isn't an _animal_ ," Lilith snarled, and if Aziraphale didn't know better, he would say there was real emotion in it, real anger. "She's more than _breeding stock_. She should have had a choice."

"If you don't want the child," Crowley said to Eve, gesturing at her stomach with all the tact of a falling rock, "I can—"

"No!" Eve stumbled back, arms around herself protectively. Lilith spread her wings, shielding her. "No, you can't, don't you _dare_ —"

"You see?" Lilith said softly, smugly, glancing over her shoulder at Eve, seeming to revel in her fear. "They'll take every choice away from you until you're nothing but a slave. You'll always be second-best. You've been set up to fail."

" _No!_ " Crowley shouted, dismay and guilt and fury suddenly all tangled up around him, a crackling glow dancing over his wingtips. "That's enough, _enough_ , you're _lying_ , and you're _not even supposed to be here!_ "

"Crowley, wait!" Aziraphale started towards him. "I really don't think you should—"

"It's not your decision," Crowley snarled, barely even looking at him.

Aziraphale faltered and fell back. Crowley held up his hand. His staff of office appeared with a sound like a thunderclap and a glow like the promise of a lightning strike. A gale sprang up among the trees, a roaring cyclone that pushed Aziraphale and Eve back, away from Lilith, who twisted frantically this way and that, trying to escape. Her wings were battered down by the wind, her flight forbidden, and she screeched her rage and fear at Crowley even as she tried to take on her owl form.

Crowley struck her before she could change, a bolt of heavenly wrath from the skies above, unforgiving and inescapable. She didn't even have time to scream. There was only a flash of white-hot fire and the tearing of the ground beneath her feet as her corporation was burned away from her and she was plunged back into the depths of Hell.

The wind died away to nothing. Crowley lowered his staff, his arm trembling, his eyes already wide with doubt and regret. Aziraphale took one step towards him, was stopped by a choked noise from Eve.

She was staring at Crowley with a terror that she had never shown in any angel's presence. _Be not afraid:_ Gabriel had always insisted on starting every conversation with them that way, while the humans had looked on with baffled interest. They'd found their angelic visitors as much of a piece with the world as the animals and the plants and themselves; they'd never known the slightest reason to cower in their presence.

Eve knew, now, and she didn't seem to see Crowley's distraught expression, didn't seem to see anything except the afterimage of his true power. In an instant, she'd turned and fled, darting into the trees as if they could shield her from the heavens above, and as she ran, she was already weeping.

"Wait—" Crowley started hoarsely, but he couldn't seem to bring himself to finish the plea. His staff vanished back into the aether. He crumpled from the tips of his wings downward, sinking to the ground like his legs couldn't hold him, until he was kneeling, head bowed, hair tumbling in curtains past his face.

"Did I do the wrong thing?" he whispered.

"You— you're an Archangel," Aziraphale replied faintly, wishing he sounded more confident, wishing he wasn't filled with doubt. "I don't think you can do the wrong thing."

Crowley shivered and pulled his wings in close, like he wanted to wrap them around himself.

"I used to think so too," he said.


	5. Chapter 5

It was too quiet under the redwoods. All the night creatures had fallen silent; every last bird and cricket had stilled their song in the wake of the heavenly bolt that had split the very atoms of the air. There was a broad, scorched circle where Lilith had stood, and deep fissures in the ground beneath, where the earth had closed up again after dragging her down. It was so quiet, Aziraphale almost thought he could still hear Eve's sobbing in the distance as she fled back to the campsite and Adam.

And he could hear Crowley's breathing. He didn't need to breathe, of course he didn't, but it was easy to get into the habit when you were corporeal, and then all sorts of other things came along with it, like the way Crowley's chest was heaving, the way his in-breaths would hitch and the out-breaths waver. His wings were trembling faintly, and he was slumped forward as if a weight were pressing him closer and closer to the ground.

Aziraphale hesitated for what felt like at least a small eternity, torn between two duties - no, be honest, torn between duty and his heart's desire. He should really go after Eve, try to soothe her fear, try to regain the humans' trust. He should.

But to leave Crowley here alone in the silent forest was unthinkable.

Aziraphale's footsteps were as soundless as everything else, absorbed into the soft mossy carpet between the trees. He didn't quite know how to break the silence, so instead he occupied himself with sitting down cross-legged next to Crowley, brushing aside some dry twigs that would have been uncomfortable to rest on, and shooing away a beetle of some kind that had been investigating Crowley's robe.

When he glanced to the side, Crowley had lifted his head a little, was looking at him from behind his curtain of hair.

"You were right," Crowley said quietly. He sighed. "You should probably file that report now."

"I am quite sure that adding Gabriel to the mix at this juncture would not improve the situation," Aziraphale replied, with perhaps unfair acerbity, given that Gabriel hadn't actually _done_ anything. Yet.

Crowley huffed a tiny, disbelieving laugh, straightening up a bit more. There was a bit of fern caught in his hair, the charred edges suggesting it had been blown there by the conjured gale. Without thinking, Aziraphale reached out and tugged it free of the copper curls. A faint flush crept over Crowley's cheekbones, and Aziraphale hastily flicked the fern away and laced his fingers together in his lap.

"In fact," Aziraphale went on, contemplating his interlinked hands while he waited for his own face to stop feeling so hot. "I think perhaps the best thing that anyone can do just now is to do _nothing_. Let all parties... cool down, think things over. Talk about it in the morning, over some tea."

Crowley was quiet again for a moment.

"Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, okay. If you think that's best."

Aziraphale found his heart suddenly misbehaving again, thumping on the inside of his ribs like it wanted a word with the neighbours. He hadn't meant— he'd never dream of _telling Crowley what to do,_ it had only been a _suggestion_ — but there was something like relief in Crowley's voice, something like gratitude. 

Like maybe, just maybe, he'd _needed_ someone to tell him what to do.

It was too confusing to think about with Crowley sitting right there next to him, and besides, there were more important things to consider.

"So you knew she was... expecting?" Aziraphale asked.

"Yeah. But I thought..." Crowley shrugged helplessly. "Just thought she knew. Thought if she didn't want to mention it I shouldn't bring it up. It's all a bit new, all this reproduction stuff, isn't it? I wasn't sure if she was, I dunno, saving it for a surprise for Adam or something."

"That would certainly be a surprise," Aziraphale remarked, thinking about what he knew of the mechanics of childbirth. "Oh dear," he went on with a sigh. "What _are_ we going to do? The poor thing is so upset, I don't know _what_ Lilith has been telling her to get her so twisted around in herself..."

"That's just it," Crowley said, low and miserable. "The thing is, Aziraphale... the thing is, I think Lilith was right."

Aziraphale's head jerked up to stare at Crowley's profile. Crowley was biting his lip, not looking at him.

"She was trying to cause trouble," Aziraphale said. "Anyone could see—"

"Yeah, yeah, of course she was, that's her job, isn't it?" Crowley suddenly shifted out of his kneeling position, sitting back and pulling his knees up to his chest so he could wrap his arms around them. "Doesn't mean she was lying all the time."

"About— about what?"

"Dunno. The Great Plan, maybe. The walls around the Garden. Choices." He rested his chin on his forearms. "Eve should have had a choice. Lilith wasn't wrong about that. Why would you design it any other way?"

Aziraphale had no answer for that. He was starting to realise that there were, in fact, a lot fewer answers available than he had previously assumed. He contemplated the word _ineffable_ once again, and discovered that he didn't quite feel like bringing it back into the conversation.

"Perhaps you could... ask?" he suggested tentatively. "I, I mean— just have a quick word with the Almighty—?"

"I've _tried_ ," Crowley almost wailed. "I've been— ever since Lilith arrived, I've been trying to talk to Her. I know She's still there behind the golden doors, but the throne is empty. She isn't— She won't _answer_. I don't— I don't even know if She's listening."

Aziraphale's breath caught in his throat.

"She must be. Surely."

"Then she must just not want to talk to me anymore," Crowley mumbled, sinking deeper into the cradle of his own arms. "Gabriel and the others still seem to be getting plenty of memos from the Metatron."

"Perhaps She's— perhaps She's just very busy," Aziraphale tried. He had, personally, spoken directly with God exactly once, at the moment of his creation, and it hadn't been much more than the celestial equivalent of a nice-to-meet-you, but it had made quite an impression that hadn't faded even yet. He could hardly imagine how it would feel to know that She was purposely ignoring you. "Or perhaps She—"

He paused, frowned, turned the words around in his head before speaking them.

"Perhaps She doesn't think you need Her help."

"Then She's _wrong_ ," Crowley snapped. Aziraphale gasped; Crowley's eyes went wide at his own blasphemy, before he closed them miserably. "I just... I don't..."

He was a symphony of tension, from his tightly curled-up body to his quivering wings, which were so taut that they were making Aziraphale's shoulders ache in sympathy. There were more pieces of scorched fern and forest debris caught in the feathers, he saw. It gave him an idea, which in turn gave him mild palpitations. He told his heart sternly to behave itself, got to his knees, and shuffled around behind Crowley.

"What are you doing?" Crowley asked uncertainly.

"You've got—" Aziraphale reached out and plucked one of the pieces of fern away. There were only a handful of them. Nothing Crowley couldn't deal with on his own. "I thought, if you wanted—"

The silence stretched out long enough that Aziraphale was about to move away.

"Please," Crowley said, so quietly it was almost a breath.

His feathers were as soft as Aziraphale had imagined, and they ran through his fingers like wet ink, black as black could be but still shimmering with colours that seemed caught just below the surface. He didn't really know what he was doing, but he knew now how it felt to be touched like this, and it was stunningly easy to find a gentle rhythm that made Crowley shiver and relax all at once, like invisible strings that had been dragging on him had been cut. He leaned back into Aziraphale's touch, and Aziraphale didn't even consider stopping once he'd removed the last bit of twig.

They didn't talk much for the rest of the night, but the silence was no longer oppressive. The night birds began to sing again. The crickets resumed their chirping. Somewhere, an owl called; not the heart-jolting screech that Lilith had imitated, but a long, ghostly _woooooo_ that drifted through the trees.

When the sun finally came up, they headed by unspoken agreement towards the humans' camp.

* * *

There was very little need for the humans to seek shelter in the Garden. The days and nights were equally balmy, and there was no lack of soft bracken and heather for them to sleep on. Nonetheless, they'd built a kind of bower of woven branches and leaves, a clever thing with walls and a door, a private space of their own that Aziraphale had admired with the frank amazement of someone who would never have thought of it and now quite wanted one too.

Adam was sitting in the doorway, head sunk low on his chest. When he saw them approaching, he leapt to his feet, standing ready as if for a fight. Crowley's steps faltered.

"Perhaps you should wait here a moment?" Aziraphale murmured.

Crowley nodded, and let him go on alone. Adam regarded Aziraphale with no little wariness, but didn't try to warn him off as he drew near enough to speak.

"Is she all right?" Aziraphale asked, gesturing to the bower.

"I don't know," Adam replied. "She's sleeping."

"No, I'm not," came Eve's voice from within the leafy walls. Adam shot a concerned look over his shoulder. Aziraphale heard the sounds of Eve sitting up. "Are they both there?"

"Yes," Adam said, looking distrustfully at Crowley, who was still keeping his distance. "But only Aziraphale's come over."

"Crowley didn't mean to frighten you," Aziraphale put in. "We're your friends."

"Lilith was my friend too," Eve sniffed. "And you killed her."

Aziraphale blinked, and made a very important connection that he perhaps should have arrived at sooner.

"Oh! No— no, my dear, she isn't dead," he said urgently. "All Crowley did was discorporate her— I, I mean, I can't say she's likely to have _enjoyed_ the experience but she'll be right as rain once she's got herself a new body."

There was a pause, a shuffling sound, and then Eve appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were rather red-rimmed, but she didn't have that scared-animal look about her anymore.

"I don't understand," Eve said. "When the Archangel Uriel explained death to us, she didn't say anything about new bodies."

"Yes, but you see, that's for— that's just here in the Earthly realm—" Aziraphale stopped, remembering golden blood running in rivulets across gleaming white marble. He swallowed, and soldiered on. All of that unpleasantness was behind them now. "Lilith is a demon. Her body is like a— a—" 

He wanted to say, _a set of clothes_ , but he wasn't sure the humans would understand the analogy, since they hadn't really got around to inventing any sort of clothing yet. For all Aziraphale knew, they thought the robes he and Crowley wore were a part of them, like their hair and wings.

"'S like a clay pot," Crowley said. He'd drifted closer, though he was still hanging back. Eve's eyes darted to him, but she didn't say anything. "You put the water in it, and the water has the same shape as the pot, yeah? But if you break the pot, the water just flows out, and if you got another pot, you could scoop it back up again."

"So she'll come back?" Eve asked.

"She'd better not," Crowley muttered.

"Oh, probably," Aziraphale said, shooting Crowley a reproving look. "She seemed quite determined. Very, er, _keen_ to get on with demon... things. I'd be surprised if we didn't see her again."

"You still haven't told us what a demon is," Adam put in. "Or why we shouldn't speak to them."

Which, now that Aziraphale thought about it, was an odd oversight. Why hadn't Michael or Uriel mentioned it when they were instructing the newly-created humans? Michael certainly seemed to bang on about defeating demonic influences enough the rest of the time...

Perhaps the hope had been that the humans would never need to find out, safe as they were supposed to be here in the Garden.

He pushed aside thoughts of walls and winged creatures, and cleared his throat.

"Well," he began, "it all comes down to good and evil, you see."

Adam and Eve looked at him blankly. Aziraphale was struck with unexpected envy. There had been a time when he hadn't known the difference either. Or rather, a time before evil had been invented. Before Death had come to the silver city. Before Aziraphale had known angels could Fall.

At least... that was what he'd always thought. But if it was a part of the Great Plan... if it had been intended from the start...

"The, er, the angels, well, we're the good ones," Aziraphale went on, "and the demons are— they're _evil_ you see— er—"

Crowley made an exasperated sort of noise, but when Aziraphale glanced helplessly back at him, his expression was more amused than anything. He had found a tree to lean against, arms folded, all long lines and casual confidence, if you couldn't see his white-knuckled grip on his own sleeves.

"Let me do it, or we'll be here for the rest of eternity," Crowley said. His eyes flitted to Eve. "If you'll listen?"

Eve bit her lip. Then she nudged Adam to one side, took his arm, and guided them both down to sit in the doorway. Adam put an arm around her shoulders.

"All right," she said.

Crowley shifted, got more comfortable against his tree. Aziraphale found a clear patch of ground to sit on, relieved to be spared the burden of organising his thoughts into anything shorter than a five hour presentation.

"Before God created you," Crowley said to the humans, "there was a war in Heaven."

Aziraphale found himself listening almost as raptly as Adam and Eve. It wasn't that Crowley was a particularly good storyteller - he had a tendency to trip over himself, or start a sentence without really knowing when or if it was going to end - but there was an urgency, an intensity in the way he spoke. Like he'd wanted to tell this story for a while.

There was a part of Aziraphale that flinched from what felt like airing Heaven's dirty laundry, but Crowley held nothing back, told them about Lucifer and about the restlessness that became rebellion that became war. There were things in there that Aziraphale had never heard in any of the official accounts. Things like how Lucifer had demanded to know why they were given with such specific roles, why they should be divided permanently in this hierarchy. What made the Seraphim more worthy or wondrous than the Cherubim? Why were their tasks and destinies set in stone from the moment of their creation? Why should they labour to create this whole universe for the benefit of humanity, and then be set aside with no future but that of stewards...

Aziraphale swallowed, thinking of Crowley's stars, the cosmos he had finished and been told to leave behind.

Then Crowley told them, white-faced and tense, what had happened to the angels who took up arms, to everyone who had gathered under Lucifer's banner. Told them about Hell and about the seething hatred it fostered, the desire to counteract every act of Heaven, every work of the Almighty. How the fallen angels had become demons—

And at that, Eve interrupted.

"That can't be right," she said. "Demons can't be fallen angels."

Crowley stared at her like she'd told him the sky was purple.

"What else would they be?" he demanded.

"But— but Lilith said—" Eve shook her head like she was trying to understand. "That doesn't make sense—"

"What did Lilith say?" Aziraphale asked. He kept his tone as neutral as possible, tried not to betray the urgency he suddenly felt. "Did she tell you something different about the war?"

"No, she never mentioned—" 

Eve stopped and took a breath. She looked between them, and then she glanced sideways at Adam, hesitation in her face, and fear, and behind both, the unstoppable spark of her determination.

"She told me I wasn't the first," Eve said, fixing her eyes on her hands, folded in her lap.

Crowley frowned and exchanged a confused look with Aziraphale.

"The first what?"

"The first woman," Eve almost whispered, lowering her head. "She said— she said that— she told me that she was created to be Adam's wife."

"She _what_?" Crowley and Adam spoke almost at the same time, while Aziraphale stared dumbfounded at Eve.

Eve continued, now clearly set on getting it out there, this thing that had been festering in her heart.

"She said that she was created to be Adam's wife! But when she wouldn't do as she was told - when she tried to choose - she was cast out and turned into a demon! And then _I_ was created, to take her place, and she said that God made me _different_ , made it so I'm— so I'd be less than Adam instead of equal— and she said that the only way I could prove I wasn't was if I started making my own choices—"

"But— there's never been anyone but you," Adam protested, heartbreakingly sincere. "We were created together."

"She said you wouldn't remember," Eve said, shooting him a beseeching glance. "That they took the memories away."

"She _lied_ ," Crowley spat with such venom it was almost a hiss. "She— she fed you a crock of lies and made you think— oh, I should've smote her _harder_ —"

"Eve, dear," Aziraphale put in before Crowley could start smoking at the fingertips, "there was never another woman before you. It has always been only you and Adam. I swear to you. I— I saw you created," he admitted, plucking nervously at his robes. "I wasn't really supposed to— it was all Gabriel's job, you know, to wake you up and introduce you to the world— but I just wanted to see— and, well, anyway. It's only ever been the two of you."

"But Lilith—" Eve protested.

"And even if there _had_ been another human somewhere along the line," Aziraphale plunged on, becoming more indignant by the word, "it _certainly_ wasn't Lilith! She was an angel. I remember her quite distinctly. She used to get into arguments with Uriel over trivial technical details and make the meetings drag on and on, and she never said thank you when she came to the Archive."

He stopped, slightly surprised by his own outburst. Eve was staring at him, stunned.

"But how could she say all those things if they weren't true?" Eve asked, so lost and shaken that Aziraphale rather wanted to give her a hug. Fortunately Adam seemed to have the same idea, pulling her close to his side. "Can— can anyone do that? Just— say things that aren't true?"

"Yes," Aziraphale replied regretfully. "They can. That's what lying is, you see."

"But then how— how am I supposed to _know_?" Eve demanded, wide-eyed. "How do I tell the difference between truth and lies?"

"Well, I suppose..." Aziraphale hesitated, then looked to Crowley again.

"It's about knowledge," Crowley said. "That's how you learn to tell the difference. You have to know enough truth to pick out the lies, and the patterns of the lies. If you know that grass is green and water is wet, you'll spot the lie if someone tells you the opposite."

Eve still seemed to be grappling with the whole concept, a little of the fear coming back into her face.

"But so many things we know, we know because you told us. How do we know that _you're_ not the ones lying?"

"We wouldn't lie to you," Aziraphale protested. "Lilith is the one who lied."

"She told me the truth about my child," Eve interrupted, touching her stomach. "You didn't."

"We didn't know you didn't know," Crowley replied, a pleading note coming into his voice. "Eve, please believe me. I'd have told you. Just didn't realise— no-one told _me_ you wouldn't know."

"An awful lot seems to rely on people deciding whether or not to tell each other things," Eve said quietly, frowning into the middle distance. "And knowing who's good and who's evil."

"Well, that's easy enough," Aziraphale replied encouragingly, though there was something nagging at the back of his mind, a sense of thin ice cracking dangerously underfoot. "We're angels. We're good. The demons are evil."

Eve looked at him for a long moment and Aziraphale felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle at the depth and intensity of her gaze.

"Yes, that's what you've told us," she said. Then, before he could reply, "You really think Lilith will come back?"

"Her or some other demon. You must be on your guard."

"And I have to know enough to know the difference between when she's lying or telling the truth," Eve said quietly, almost to herself. She sighed, and seemed suddenly to deflate, leaning into Adam with her head against his shoulder. "I'm... I'm tired. I want to rest some more. Will you come back to light the fire for us later?"

Relief swept through Aziraphale like a tide. It was going to be all right. They could go back to how things were before, and now the humans would be even safer from demonic interference, and maybe he wouldn't even have to report any of this to Gabriel or anyone else.

"Of course," Crowley answered for both of them, and Aziraphale could hear the same relief in his voice, see it in his loosened stance. "Didn't you have a new kind of tea to show us?"

"It's made from dried beans," Adam said, with the closest thing to a smile that had been on either of their faces all morning. "Tastes completely different. And it _really_ wakes you up."

"We'll look forward to it," Aziraphale said, getting to his feet and dusting off his robes. "We'll really— very much— I mean to say—"

He was babbling in sheer relief, and yet there was still that nagging thought - that feeling as if there was something he should be concerned about, a thorn quietly working its way into an unprotected foot.

"Well, we'll see you later," he said finally.

As they walked away, he couldn't help glancing back over his shoulder. The humans watched them go. Eve caught his eye, and smiled wistfully, and Aziraphale told himself that it wouldn't be long before the laughter came back into her eyes and voice. Now they could put this whole thing behind them. And he was sure that whatever they'd done with the beans would be delicious.

"I'd better go back up," Crowley said, when they were some distance from the camp. "Missed a meeting yesterday, Gabriel's not happy with me, need to keep my head down for a bit."

"Oh," Aziraphale said, trying to hide his disappointment. He'd rather hoped that things would go back to how they used to be in other ways. He'd missed Crowley's company amidst the tension and stress since Lilith's arrival, even though they'd often been together. "Of course. I'll just, er... I'd better get back to my wall, I suppose."

"Yeah, gotta watch out for those demons," Crowley said, so deadpan that Aziraphale shot him a sharp look. Crowley started to grin, a helpless, brilliant thing born of sheer relief. "Might come knocking on the gates—"

"Oh, hush," Aziraphale replied, trying to frown but fighting a smile. "We seem to have done all right, haven't we?"

Crowley glanced back towards the humans' camp, the grin faltering a bit.

"Yeah. Maybe. I dunno, I feel like..." He shook his head, sighed, and spread his wings ready to launch himself into the air. "I s'pose we'll see."

Aziraphale nodded and stepped back to give him space to take off.

"Well, mind how you go, then," he said.

Crowley hesitated.

"Aziraphale." 

His voice was soft, achingly uncertain. Aziraphale looked at him, startled, and was almost bowled over by how Crowley's attention was completely and utterly fixed on him.

"Thank you," Crowley said quietly.

"I—" Aziraphale started, but Crowley had leapt into the air, spiralling upwards with broad sweeps of his wings, disappearing rapidly into the bright morning sky.

"I didn't really do anything," Aziraphale finished, entirely to himself, but the protest didn't do a thing to stop the warm and breathless feeling that had seized his whole corporation.

He walked the rest of the way back to his post, just to give his body time to get itself sorted out. He felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and a spark had been kindled somewhere under his breastbone. He didn't even mind returning to his dreary task of patrolling the wall, or the hot noon sun that beat down on his head and neck.

The feeling lasted right up until the bolt of lightning that split the clear day, and the booming voice of Michael announcing to the whole Garden - to the whole world - to Heaven and Hell and all who dwelt therein - that the humans had sinned against God and eaten from the Tree of Knowledge.

* * *

There were storm-clouds gathering east of Eden. Aziraphale watched them from the top of the wall, feeling very much like a balloon that had been deflated, stomped on, thrown into the bin, and then asked if it was having a good day. 

And he wasn't even sure what a balloon _was_.

The worst part, somehow, was that no-one had actually accused him of failing in his duty. Michael had called all the gate guards together and told them that the humans were leaving the Garden, and that if they tried to stay, Aziraphale and his colleagues were to drive them out with their flaming swords. He hadn't been singled out at all.

The others had been taken aback (apart from Nithael, who had a spiteful streak that Aziraphale had never liked) but no-one had questioned it. Aziraphale _wanted_ to question it, he really did, but he'd felt pinned in place by the weight of everything that was happening. There had been Pronouncements, and the Earth had Trembled, and he was almost certain there had been a Rain of Frogs, although he wasn't quite sure what that added to the situation other than a certain squelchy unpleasantness. The Archangels had all taken a turn showing up - except, notably, for Raphael - to lecture the humans on topics that Aziraphale privately thought they should perhaps have brought up a tad sooner.

And now they were cast out of the Garden. Everything that had been arranged so perfectly for them had been taken away; they were to know cold and pain and fear and death. It seemed... it felt _excessive_ , if Aziraphale were honest... that one misstep, one choice should be punished with such iron inflexibility. That they weren't even given a chance to plead their case.

But he thought of Lucifer, and those who Fell, and knew in his heart of hearts that there was precedent.

There was a sudden downdraft, the air rushing out of the way of something dropping like a stone, and Crowley landed on the wall next to him. His eyes were wild and his wings kept flitting back and forth in agitation even after he'd alighted.

"Tell me they haven't gone already," he pleaded, voice strained. "Tell me they're still in the Garden."

Aziraphale's heart broke a bit.

"They aren't, I'm afraid. They left some time ago. They're— they're crossing the desert now."

He pointed to the distant figures trudging through the sand. Crowley turned with pure anguish on his face. He flexed his wings as if he were about to take flight after them, but then he faltered, and shrank in on himself, and remained earthbound.

"This is all my fault," he whispered. "I— I should never have—"

"Crowley—"

"That blasted _tree_ ," Crowley went on, furious and miserable. "Right in front of them with a big _don't touch_ sign. Like a secret test, but they can't ever _pass_ it, all they can do is _not fail_ , right up until the moment when they _do._ "

He spun on his heel to look back over the Garden, at the scorched crater where the Tree of Knowledge had been blasted out of existence by Heaven's righteous wrath.

"I pushed her into it," he said hoarsely. "I practically _told_ her, didn't I? That she needed knowledge... that she had to know the difference between good and evil..."

"Crowley..."

"And they were all ready to go," Crowley went on with snarl and a gesture at the sky. "Gabriel and Michael and Uriel. Never mentioned any of it to me, but they had their speeches all worked out, their blades all sharpened, their— their bloody _halos_ all polished up and sparkling. Like they were just _waiting_ for the humans to mess up so they could sweep in and say _I told you so_ —"

He choked on his own words, his own fear bright and burning in his eyes.

"It's my fault," he repeated brokenly. "I dragged them down with me."

"You're not Fallen," Aziraphale said, heart pounding and mouth dry, a yawning terror opening up in his chest at how diminished Crowley looked, how lost. His eyes had dimmed to a bare glimmer. "You passed the test."

"No, I just didn't fail," Crowley said, closing his eyes. "Yet."

Aziraphale couldn't hold back any longer, crossed the distance between them and reached out to take Crowley's hand. Crowley jerked back at the touch, eyes flying open, and Aziraphale's heart broke a bit more, and he immediately snatched back his hand with the beginnings of an apology on his lips.

But then Crowley was looking at him, frowning, suddenly distracted as he scanned Aziraphale up and down.

"Wait, where's your sword?"

Oh, how Aziraphale had been hoping no-one would ask that question. He coughed and shuffled his feet, looking anywhere but at Crowley.

"I, um." 

He tried to think of an excuse. 

"Well, you see, I."

He was going to be in so much trouble.

"I gave it away," Aziraphale finally admitted.

Crowley's jaw had dropped. He made a baffled, interrogative noise.

"I just thought— they don't know how to make fire on their own, Crowley! And there are all those creatures out there— they won't be friendly like in the Garden! They're going to be so cold and so scared and so—"

An expression had been creeping over Crowley's face that was equal parts amazement and disbelief. It suddenly blossomed into something like the sun coming up, into a _delight_ and relief and _joy_ that Aziraphale hadn't expected at all.

"You gave it to Adam and Eve?" Crowley breathed. "You gave them your sword?"

"Oh, I know it was probably the wrong thing," Aziraphale fretted, staring at the ground, "but I just couldn't—"

He didn't get any further, because all of a sudden Crowley's hands were on his shoulders, and then Crowley's mouth was on his, desperate and clumsy and so full of feeling it was like being swept away.

Aziraphale had seen the humans kiss. They did it for all sorts of reasons, in all sorts of ways. He'd seen them kiss languorously, and passionately, and with little quick darts like birds, giggling at each other. He'd never seen them kiss like this, like Crowley couldn't help himself, like it was the only possible thing to do.

It only lasted a handful of moments. Not long enough for Aziraphale to do anything but gasp a little against Crowley's lips, not even long enough for him to think of closing his eyes. It was so warm and intense and intimate, an effervescent feeling that was a heady mix of emotional and physical, an experience he had no category for except _good_.

Then Crowley was pulling back, blushing fiercely, eyes so bright and blazing again, fixed on Aziraphale like he was a star just finished and placed in the sky.

"You— you're _brilliant_ ," Crowley said in a rush. His hands were still on Aziraphale's shoulders. "You're so— _so_ —"

He took in Aziraphale's stunned expression, his wide eyes, and abruptly backed off, turning even redder in the face. Aziraphale didn't try to stop him, mostly because he couldn't remember how to move any part of his body except for his racing heart and rapid breathing, which were having a fine time competing in some sort of physiological race to see which could make him more dizzy.

"Er, sorry," Crowley mumbled, turning to look out over the desert again. One hand crept up to rub self-consciously at the back of his neck. Out in the distance, under the dimming sky, they both saw the flicker of flame. "You really just... gave it to them."

"Please don't tell anybody," Aziraphale managed to stammer. "I don't— I don't think it would go down very well."

"Of course I won't, I'd never—" Crowley glanced back at him, cheeks still red, eyes lingering for a moment on Aziraphale's face before he looked away. "Of course I won't. I was never even here, right?" 

"I... suppose not, but—"

A cold drop of water hit Aziraphale on the cheek. He flinched, and looked up, just in time for another one to hit him right in the eye. He blinked rapidly, and by the time his vision had cleared, there were dozens of drops, falling faster and faster.

"Might've been better that way," Crowley went on, half to himself. "Thought I was so clever, sneaking down here." He shook his head, staring out over the desert. "Thought I could help. But in the end, everything would have been better if I'd just... stayed where I was supposed to be. Better without me."

"That's absolute nonsense," Aziraphale said hotly. Crowley jerked his head around to stare at him. "Nothing could _possibly_ be better without you."

He rather wanted to swallow his tongue, but the words were out there, and it was his turn to blush so hard he thought his face might be permanently stained red. He became very occupied with trying to see where Adam and Eve had got to, but the rain was coming down harder now, drawing a misty veil across the desert, and he didn't much care for the way his robe was starting to get all heavy and damp, or the constant cold shocks of the raindrops hitting his skin.

Suddenly the latter sensation vanished entirely. Aziraphale looked up, surprised, to see a black wing arching over him, sheltering him from the rain.

"Oh, but— what about you?"

Crowley waved a hand vaguely upwards, and Aziraphale saw that the rain that should have been falling on his head was dissolving into vapour before it could touch him. There was a faint, multi-coloured arc of light within the spray. Aziraphale found it quite mesmerising. He wondered if it was an Archangel thing, or something particular to Crowley.

They stood in silence for a while. Aziraphale spent most of it imagining things he could say to Crowley, and then not saying them. The daylight ebbed away, and Aziraphale caught glimpses of that spark of fire again in the distance, going ever further from the Garden, ever deeper into the night.

"I have to get back," Crowley said reluctantly, when even angelic vision could no longer make out that glowing speck. "There's lots to do now. Lots of _committees_." He said the word as distastefully as one might say _cockroaches_ , although he had actually expressed a certain amount of respect for those hardy insects. "You coming?"

"Ah, no, I— I'm to stay down here for now," Aziraphale replied. "Until I receive further instructions."

"Oh." Crowley bit his lip and glanced at him. "Well, I don't know if I— I might not be able to get away again."

"Oh," said Aziraphale, his heart sinking.

"But, listen, when you— when you get back upstairs— I mean, I'll probably be buried under paperwork for the next century but you— if you want to— you can come and find me. Anytime you like."

His voice was a strange blend of nonchalance and urgency, of doubt and hope. Aziraphale's heart became buoyant again, almost to the point of lifting him off the ground. Suddenly he didn't even feel the cold anymore.

"Of course!" he said. "I'll pop by as soon as I can."

And Crowley's smile, oh, it really was just like the sun rising, wasn't it? On a day when the sky seemed dark and the horizon murky and you really weren't expecting much more than a smudge of grey light, but then the clouds parted and lifted and suddenly there was such a _blaze_ of red and gold and warmth and joy...

"Right," Crowley said, eyes bright as a supernova, hands fidgeting with his sleeves as if he didn't know what to do with them. "Okay. I'd better— yeah."

He took a few steps back, which unfortunately allowed the rain to start soaking Aziraphale again, but he really couldn't care less just at the moment.

"I'll see you later then," Crowley said.

"I— I'll look forward to it."

And then he was gone, leaping skyward like he was racing towards the heart of the storm, black wings blending with the night so thoroughly that Aziraphale could barely see him after a second or two of flight. He stared after him until the rain hit him square in the eyes again, at which point he shook his head, and for some reason sneezed twice in quick succession. He wasn't sure at all sure he liked rain.

Perhaps it would be drier under the trees. It wasn't like he had orders to patrol the wall anymore, just to keep the humans out - and he was sure they wouldn't be coming back. His heart quailed at the idea of them out there alone in the dark, but they'd stepped out into the desert without a trace of hesitation. At least, he thought, they had each other. They'd build another shelter, make a fire, find some leaves to brew into tea. They'd talk, and hold each other close, and they'd kiss...

His hand crept up to touch his own mouth, feeling a ghost of sensation, of that brief moment when Crowley had kissed him and it had felt like flying without his feet ever leaving the ground.

He didn't quite know what it meant, what had driven Crowley to do it, but the memory was a warm and writhing thing under his breastbone, a thread of gold that made his heart sing.

There was a flash of lightning, a crash of thunder. Aziraphale made up his mind. He took flight, leaving the Eastern Gate to its own devices, and went in search of somewhere warm and dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of this series to come. I just can't resist the slowburn.
> 
> Come and say hi on [tumblr](https://brightwanderer.tumblr.com/)!


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